


Unspoken Thing

by hufflepuffkaspbrak



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, High School AU, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, but also a little bit of, it has some one sided stozier in the beginning but it's ultimately a reddie fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-02-12 21:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12969057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuffkaspbrak/pseuds/hufflepuffkaspbrak
Summary: "When are we gonna do something about this unspoken thing between us?"





	1. Freshman Year

When Eddie first met Richie in his freshman science class his first thought was, “shit”. Because this was the exact type of guy he didn’t like. The type of guy who was attractive and charismatic but had an uncaring aura about him. The type of guy who could charm his way through life with a flash of his pearly whites. The type of guy that girls literally fawned over. The type of guy who knew all this and used it to his advantage.

Eddie didn’t speak to him in class. Or anywhere for that matter. So all of this character analysis of the boy was done from his seat in the back of the classroom or random encounters in the hallway. His best friend Bill was sure to remind him that there was no way to know if this Richie guy was all that bad if he had never spoken to him. And realistically, Eddie knew this, but it didn’t stop him from giving in to his gut feeling that this guy just annoyed the hell out of him.

Richie talked out loud during class when it wasn’t necessary and no matter how irrelevant his comments were, the teacher never cared. He would laugh along with Richie and continue the lesson, sometimes even stopping the class to have a short conversation. This made Eddie clench his pencil in his hand tightly, glaring at the back of Richie’s head, his dark curls seemingly mocking him as they shook with laughter.

In fact, most of Eddie’s time in the class was spent with him glaring at the back of Richie’s head. He sometimes found himself not paying attention to class as much as he should and his lab partner, Mike, even occasionally waved his hand in front of his face to make sure Eddie was all there. In those situations, Eddie would just smile at his partner and go back to work while Mike gave him a suspicious look.

This went on for nearly the whole school year. The same thing every week. Eddie would glare in science, Eddie would glare in the hallways, Eddie would glare at lunch. He would scoff whenever Richie spoke and roll his eyes when someone mentioned him (mostly Stan, he talked about Richie quite often). But he never did anything else. He never had a conversation with the guy he grew to dislike so much and Richie didn’t even so much as glance to the back of the classroom, so as far as Eddie was concerned, the boy didn’t know he existed.

It wasn’t until February of his freshman year that anyone brought up Richie directly to Eddie and it was a slightly annoyed Stan who mentioned him.

“Why do you hate Richie Tozier so much?” Stan had sat down at the lunch table and set his food down with a slight slam.

Eddie squinted his eyes in confusion. “I don’t hate him. He’s in my science class and he’s annoying.”

“You don’t know him!” Stan exclaimed.

“And I don’t have a desire to, Stan.” Eddie responded.

Each of the four boys at the lunch table had a different emotion displayed across their face. Eddie was confused. Bill was looking at Stan with an upset, huffy face. Mike looked amused as he looked back and forth between Stan and Eddie. But Stan, his lips were pursed, arms crossed, and eyes locked onto Eddie’s.

“Well, I think he’s great.” Stan continued, “He always seems to help out, even if he can be a bit…energetic.”

Eddie had to resist his sudden urge to roll his eyes. “Not all of us have a blatant crush on the trashmouth, Stanley.”

Stan’s mouth fell open. “A-a crush? What, no, that’s not…No. He’s just helpful, a-and nice.”

“Eddie, you have no room to talk about blatant crushes.” Mike spoke up.

The smaller boy’s head whipped around to look at him. “What?”

“W-why didn’t you t-tell me?” Bill smiled.

“Because I don’t have a crush!” Eddie exclaimed.

“You don’t think I can see through this ‘hate’ of Tozier and know why you actually stare at him in science all day?”

“What?” Stan’s eyebrows raised in suspicion.

Eddie scoffed. “Please, if you think that I could ever in my heart like that boy, you’re crazy. Like, ‘you should see a doctor’ crazy.”

Mike drops the subject but Eddie doesn’t miss the way that Stan keeps staring at him.

 

The next time Richie Tozier makes his way into Eddie’s life is when Stan begs his friends to go to a baseball game with him (Richie is on the baseball team, but Stan simply says he wants to support his school). Bill and Mike are busy, but Eddie has no excuse. He ends up being picked up by Stan’s mom, Stan beaming in the front seat, and Eddie staying quiet in the back of the car until they arrive at the park where the game would be. They’re playing a rival school so the stands are decently full and Stan and Eddie end up sitting next to a girl Eddie knows as Beverly Marsh (apparently, she’s in Stan’s English class).

Eddie sits on the end of the metal bleachers, staring at the teams warming up as Stan and Beverly talk about something in their class. Eddie catches a glimpse of curly dark hair out of the corner of his eye and his heart rate picks up. Richie sends one of his flashing grins up to the stands and waves, obviously directing it at someone.

That someone was Beverly, who stood up and cheered. “Good luck, Tozier!”

Stan’s face turned red. “You know him?”

She beamed and looked over at Stan. “He’s my best friend, has been since the first grade.”

“Oh.” Stan mumbled and looked over to the field.

Eddie sighed at his hopeless friend and looked back at the field.

The game isn’t bad, Eddie could admit. The energy of the crowd is great and Beverly is energetic and loud in all the right ways, making sure Eddie is a part of the conversation but also screaming at the field (her boyfriend, Ben, was on the team and she made sure she yelled words of encouragement to him as well as to her best friend). Stan tried to seem completely neutral but Eddie noticed he only seemed to be cheering for Richie. Eddie yelled along when everyone else did but he’d never been that into baseball.

After the game (they won by one point), Beverly dragged Stan and Eddie by the hands over to where her boyfriend was. Ben was a sweaty mess of a boy with such a kind face that Eddie felt like he could instantly trust him. Bev wrapped her arms around him, not caring about his sweat-drenched clothing.

“You did great!” She pressed a big kiss to his cheek and he smiled down at her.

“Hi, guys!” Ben reached out to shake their hands with Bev still hanging on him. “You friends of Bev’s?”

“Yeah!” Bev answered before they could. “This is Stan, he’s in my English class. And this is Eddie.”

Stan looked as if he was going to say something when a loud voice interrupted him.

“Beverly Marsh, my biggest fan!” Richie Tozier strutted over to their little group, wrapping an arm around Bev and Ben, placing kisses on both of their cheeks. “And of course, how could I forget about dear Ben.”

“Your ass looked great out there.” Beverly winked at him and Ben playfully rolled his eyes.

Eddie glanced between the three of them with squinted eyes, more out of confusion than anything else. When he flicked his eyes over to Stan, his face was red, gaze locked on Richie and his sweaty curls pressed to his face.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Richie let go of his friends and took a step towards them. He bowed slightly, smiling up at them. “Richie Tozier, at your service.”

“Um, I’m Stan.” His eyes are wide and he shot out a hand to shake Richie’s.

“Oh, so formal, Stan.” Richie shook his hand, eyes twinkling. “Stan the man.”

Stan squeaked so quietly that only Eddie could hear him.

“And hello there, cutie.” The curly haired boy turned his body to Eddie’s.

“I’m Eddie.” His response is short.

“I know you,” Richie smirked. “I tend to remember cute boys in my science classes.”

Eddie pursed his lips. “Sorry, I figured you were too busy mouthing off to notice anything in that class.”

Beverly threw her head back in a cackle and the corners of Richie’s mouth turned up in amusement. “Alright, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Feisty one. I like that.” Richie attempted to wrap an arm around Eddie but he quickly shrugged it off. “Remind me to talk to you more.”

 

Richie didn’t talk to Eddie more. In fact, things go back to normal besides the fact that Beverly and Ben say hi to him in the hallways. Stan and Eddie get into the first fight of their decade of friendship after the baseball game, Stan (still claiming he didn’t like Richie) yelling at Eddie for flirting with Richie and letting him feel like an idiot. It took an hour of convincing and Stan finally confessing his feelings for them to make up.

Eddie could swear that during science, Richie’s eyes make their way to Eddie’s side of the room during his daily performances of outrageousness. But he thinks it’s probably just his mind playing tricks. Richie still annoyed him just as much as he did before but now, Eddie knew that he’s aware of his existence. He doesn’t complain about him anymore to his friends, no matter how infuriating his behavior in the class that day was. Stan also decided to mention him less in public, saving the gushing for when him and Eddie are alone and he could speak without anyone clueing in on his secret.

When Eddie saw Richie in the hallways, his eyes tended to follow the curly haired boy for a bit longer than necessary. He told himself it’s because he’s trying to see what Stan sees in him. Richie was loud and crude. He’s all limbs and no grace. He’s messy and a bit arrogant. But whenever he smiled, a grin that stretched over his face and reached his eyes that sparkled with mischief, Eddie guessed he could see something.

But it didn’t really matter. Eddie wasn’t a fan of Richie Tozier. And Richie lived his life without Eddie Kaspbrak.


	2. Sophomore Year

Eddie assumed he would be lucky enough to be able to start a new school year with the intentions of focusing on his studies and enjoying life with his friends. He swore his body lit on fire and his brain threw a riot when Richie Tozier walked into his English class on the first day. The boy had grown taller, his clothes had gotten darker, his hair longer, but damn, was he just as loud as ever.

“New year, folks!” He exclaimed when he walked into the class, slinging his backpack off his shoulder onto the table Eddie has sat at and sitting across from Eddie. “Hey there, Eds.”

“Not my name, Tozier.”

“Eds, Eds, Eds,” Richie shook his head and grinned. “You can’t control what comes out of my mouth.”

Eddie bit back a remark, deciding to leave it be and not let Richie get into his head on the first day of classes. Ben Hanscom, who had sat down at his table only seconds before Richie, gave him a look at pity.

“Hey, Eddie.” He felt a hang on his back and looked over to see Bill sitting down next to him.

Eddie grinned at him. “Bill, thank god you’re here, Tozier is going to drive me mad.”

“Hey!” Richie protested and Bill rolled his eyes.

Their English class consisted mostly of group discussions and projects. Something about being a “collaborative” class. The only thing Eddie got from that was that Richie would be able to speak almost constantly. And the only thing the teacher could tell him to do was to control the volume of his voice.

Richie turned out to have some decent things to say, and it shocked Eddie that he could say things that weren’t jokes and it shocked him even more that Richie had even done the summer reading of _The Tale of Two Cities._ Eddie decided not to speak much, Ben seemed to be pretty passionate about the book and he allowed the two friends to bicker about the character development while he sat back and watched.

About half way through the class Richie directed his attention away from Ben and towards Eddie. “Are you going to chime in, Eds?”

“Why should I when you’re so passionate about Sydney Carton?” Eddie responded nonchalantly.

“Sorry for doing the assignment.” Richie said, a smile plastered on his face to show he was only teasing.

“W-we were letting you t-two have your debate.” Bill spoke up.

“That’s very thoughtful, Billy boy, but I want to hear what Spaghetti has to say.” Richie rested his chin in his hands and looked at Eddie intently.

“Spaghetti?” Eddie raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, like Eddie Spaghetti. It rhymes.”

“Please, _please_ , don’t call me that.” Bill and Ben both snickered and Eddie turned his head to his friend. “Don’t encourage him.”

“He has nicknames for everyone,” Ben told him, smiling lightly. “He doesn’t stop.”

“You love my nicknames, Haystack, don’t lie.” Richie nudged Ben with his elbow.

“No, I _tolerate_ them.” He said but his face was full of affection for his friend.

“Well, Eds here will learn to love them.”

 

Eddie did not learn to love the nicknames. Every other day he would show up to his English class and endure Richie’s endless stream of consciousness that just spilled out of his mouth. And every other day, Bill would be right next to him practically holding him back from stapling Richie’s mouth shut.

Eddie and Bill had met in the 1st grade, at the ripe old age of 5, on the playground during recess and Eddie had been ready to attack someone who had pushed Stan off the monkey bars, causing him to need to go the nurse. Bill, not having even known Eddie then, had grabbed his arms and dragged him away from the impending fight. Eddie had struggled against Bill but even at 5 years old, Bill towered over him.

While Stan and Eddie were best friends and had been since before they could talk, sometimes they were a bit too similar. Both were shy boys with firecracker personalities that could cause them to get into trouble if someone managed to rip down their timid exterior. If one was upset, the other was instantly by their side, emotions tumbling out of control without any context of the situation. This was where Bill came in. Bill was level headed and smart, assessing almost every situation and generally keeping Stan and Eddie out of constant trouble (they were surprisingly impulsive).

So it made sense that Bill would be the one to stop Eddie from jumping Richie during English.

“Eddie, do you have anything to add before we turn in the paper?” Ben asked politely. The boy often ignored Eddie’s fits of silent rage and continued on as if nothing was happening. He also tended to ignore Richie’s loud and boisterous nature so maybe it was something he’d picked up on after years of being friends with him.

“Can I read it over?” Eddie said and Ben passed the paper over to him.

Eddie’s eyes scanned the sheet, looking for anything that he could think of that could help them get their point across in their paper. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Richie with a smile on his face and his gaze fixed to the smaller boy. Eddie ignored him, reading the words but after having to reread the sentence nearly 10 times, his head snapped up.

“Do you need something?”

Richie smirked. “You’re cute when you concentrate.”

Eddie’s face turned red and he squinted his eyes in a glare before looking back down.

“Bill, how does Eddie not get mad at _everything_ you say?” Eddie heard Richie ask.

“W-we’ve been f-friends for a while now.” Bill answered.

“But surely you’re not as uptight as him.”

Eddie tried to ignore the talking, his eyes swimming over the paragraphs. He knew he shouldn’t let Richie get under his skin so easily. He was just an annoying boy, and Eddie had dealt with annoying boys before. In fact, Eddie got frustrated with the vast majority of the population of the school but managed to keep his emotions in check. Why was Richie able to mess him up so badly?

“Richie, how about you turn in the paper?” Ben asked his friend once Eddie handed the it back.

Richie simply saluted in response, getting up with paper in hand. Once he was out of earshot, Ben leaned forward.

“Bev and Richie were friends way before I knew either of them. They’re very similar in a lot of ways but one difference is that Bev tries to keep her impulsive words in check.”

Eddie cocked an eyebrow up in confusion, looking at Ben as if he was expecting more.

The boy continued. “I love them both. But Richie doesn’t know when to stop.”

Bill snorted. “You c-could say that.”

“I know, I know.” Ben sighed. “But he’s not a bad guy, is what I want to say. A lot to handle, trust me, and loud as hell.”

Eddie crossed his arms. “He annoys me.”

“He annoys me, too.” Ben laughed, no venom behind his words.

 

Ben’s words echoed throughout Eddie’s head for a while. With every crude joke Richie made, every one of his snide comments or flirty compliments, Eddie just took a deep breath. He was getting better at being able to handle the boy’s rambunctious personality without wanting to reach across the table and rip his head off. Bill seemed to already consider Richie his friend, his previous face of annoyance being replaced with one of amusement, not unlike the looks Ben gave him. Eddie, however, took a bit more convincing that Richie was any more than just an immature boy who couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself.

One time Eddie smiled at a joke Richie told without even thinking about it, Richie’s eyes went wide in shock and before Eddie’s smile could drop, Richie was raising a fist in the air in a victory stance. It took two weeks for the loud boy to let the incident go and since then, Eddie had vowed to not let his bitter guard down in front of Richie.

And although Eddie had grown quite fond of Ben, when their English teacher announced that for their next project they would need to be in groups of two, Eddie didn’t hesitate before he gripped Bill’s hand tightly, bringing it to his chest.

“Could you move any faster, Eds?” Richie chuckled.

“Bill and I just work really well together.” Eddie faked a sickly-sweet smile.

Richie gave him a knowing look but lets the topic go, standing up to go to the front of the class for the assignment papers. He came back with a grin a bit too big for Eddie’s liking.

“I have good news and bad news.” He sat down, not on the chair like a normal person but on the table, his legs swinging off the edge. “Bad news is that Mrs. Finch already assigned the partners. Good news is that I’m with Eddie Spaghetti.”

Eddie scoffed. “Nice joke.”

Richie just smiled and handed the papers in his hand over, each one with a set of partners printed on the top with the subject. The names _“Eddie and Richie”_ clearly on the top of one, and _“Bill and Ben”_ on the other.

Eddie shook his head, looking at Bill for support. “No, I want to work with Bill.”

Richie leaned over the table and grabbed Eddie’s hand slowly, bringing it up to his chest just like he had done to Bill’s only minutes before. He looked into Eddie’s eyes dramatically, “You’re with me.”

Eddie looks at him with wide eyes and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, he could hear Bill and Ben laughing softly but his gaze was stuck on Richie’s cocky face. He took his hand back from Richie quickly, wrapping it around himself.

Richie scooted over (still on top of the table) so he was positioned in front of Eddie and took their assignment paper into his lap. “Do you want to work in the library or here?”

Eddie was slightly taken aback by the question. It was just that, a question. No jokes or innuendos or nicknames. “Um, it’s a bit loud in here, we can go to the library.”

Richie smiled and hopped off the table, going to the front of the classroom where the teacher was.

“You want to come, too?” Eddie spoke to Bill and Ben, in more of a pleading tone than an asking one.

“I think we’ll stay here.” Bill smiled, a glint in his eyes that shows Eddie he’s purposefully staying where he was.

Eddie scoffed softly before turning on his heel and following Richie out of the classroom. The two walked in silence, the halls of the school empty except for a few stragglers here and there as it was still in the middle of the period. Eddie had his hands resting in his pockets, his shorter legs putting his pace a few feet behind Richie.

“I’m sorry you got put with me.” Richie spoke up when they reached a table in the library.

Eddie looked up and he was met with a face of awkwardness and uncertainty, emotions that Eddie had never seen Richie display before.

“It’s no big deal.” Eddie tried to give him a comforting smile but he’s sure it didn’t look like he planned it to.

“I know you’d rather have been with Bill. Or even Ben.”

“Well to be fair, they’re nicer to me.” Eddie tried to lighten the tension a bit.

Richie managed to smile. “I’m nice to you, Eds.”

“In a mocking sort of way, sure.”

“Eddie Spaghetti!” Richie exclaimed, putting his hand over his heart in fake pain. “I would _never_ mock you.” Eddie gave him a knowing look. “Okay, maybe a little bit of teasing. But never mocking.”

Eddie smiled, genuinely this time. The two were silent for a moment before the shorter boy cleared his throat. “I’m fine being your partner as long as you actually do the work.”

“I won’t let you down, Eds.”

 

Eddie was once again at a baseball game. This time, it was the opening game of the season and he was with Bill and Mike as well at Stan and Bev. The girl’s warm and witty personality managed to make Mike and Bill feel welcomed to the game, despite not knowing the two boys before. The teams were warming up, Eddie’s eyes chasing the ball as it was being thrown from player to player, the sound of his friends’ laughter filling his ears.

“Has he ever mentioned me?” Stan leaned in, whispering into Eddie’s ear.

“What?” Eddie looked away from the diamond.

Stan looked towards his friends, who were deep in conversation, before continuing. “Richie. Has he ever mentioned me?”

“Why would he?” Eddie asked. “Have you spoken to him since last year?”

“I smile at him in the hallways.”

“Oh, wow, I see you’re taking the flirting up a notch.”

Stan shoved Eddie’s shoulder softly. “Be quiet. I just figured, you know, aren’t you friends?”

“Friends?” Eddie glanced over to where Richie’s curls were falling out from under his baseball cap as he practiced swinging the bat. “I mean, we’re partners in English, but that’s it.”

Eddie saw a hint of jealousy swim through Stan’s eyes. “Do you think we could all…like, hang out together? Are you close enough to him for that?”

“You want me to ask Richie Tozier to hang out?” Eddie almost laughed at the thought.

“Please.” Stan was nearly begging and Eddie felt bad for his friend, hopelessly infatuated with a boy he really knew nothing about. A boy who he had only spoken to once but had managed to get a firm grip on his life.

“I’ll see.” Eddie tried to drop the subject.

“Please, I can’t bring it up to anyone else, you know that.”

“Stan, why -” Eddie was interrupted by a flurry of yelling, signaling the game was going to begin. He stopped speaking and looked over to Stan, who was looking at him with sad eyes.  Eddie ignored him and looked out to where their team was going out into the field.

“Woo!” Bev yelled next to him. “You got it, boys!”

Ben and Richie’s heads turned immediately towards her, smiling and waving. Richie’s eyes then wandered slowly towards Eddie’s and their eyes locked. The players were a significant distance from the bleachers but Eddie could’ve sworn he saw him wink before turning to look at the first player at bat.

The game went slowly, as baseball games normally do in Eddie’s mind. They had the occasionally exciting moments, when a player would manage to get a really good hit or someone tried to steal a base, but for the most part, Eddie’s entertainment came in the form of Beverly’s screaming.

“Why do baseball pants try to kill me?” Stan leaned in for the second time that afternoon to whisper.

“Huh?” Eddie didn’t look away from the game.

“Their pants. It makes their asses look great. I mean, look at his butt, Eddie.”

Eddie turned his head to give Stan a confused look to which he responded with a simple shoulder shrug and a smile. Eddie looked back, his eyes falling down the backs of the players to their pants and he let out a soft breath. The pants _were_ flattering.

“Don’t be a perv, Stan.” Eddie laughed softly.

“But I’m not lying.”

Eddie scanned across the diamond and his eyes finally landed on the boy he was looking for. He tried not to look but the tight baseball pants left nothing to the imagination and Eddie was staring at Richie before he even realized, his mouth going dry and his brain fuzzy. He heard Stan sigh contently next to him and he snapped out of his daze quickly.

They ended up losing the game but if Eddie was being completely honest, he wasn’t paying that much attention after Stan pointed out the pants. Before they walked down the bleachers, Beverly grabbed Eddie’s arm, halting him.

“It’s tradition that after the first home game, Ben, Richie and I go out. Would you guys like to join this year?” She asked, a friendly smile adorning her face.

“Yes,” Stan answered quickly, everyone turned to look at him. “I’m hungry.” He quickly added.

Beverly looked to the other three boys, head turned questioningly. Mike shrugged and Bill looked over to Eddie. “O-only if E-Eddie behaves.”

Bev let out a laugh as Eddie’s face heated up. “I know all about Eddie and Richie, don’t worry. It’ll be fun.” She swung an arm around his shoulder and led them down to the two sweaty boys coming out of the diamond.

“New people, again!” Richie exclaimed, looking at Mike. “Richie Tozier, at your service.”

“I’ve heard plenty about you from Eddie.” Mike grinned and introduced himself.

“From Eddie?” A grin rivaling the Joker stretched across Richie’s face. He flung himself over to Eddie, wrapping his arms around him. “Oh, I knew you loved me.”

“Get off,” Eddie groaned and shoved him off. “You’re sweaty and gross.” He could see out of the corner of his eye, Stan looking at them with a not so nice expression on his face. “Let’s just go.”

They end up all squished together in a booth at a little diner at the edge of town, it’s mostly empty which gives them the freedom to be loud without worrying about disturbing people’s meals. Beverly sat between Ben and Richie on one side of the booth while Mike, Bill and Stan were on the other side. Eddie took one for the team and pulled up a chair, sitting at the edge of the table.

Stan sat directly across from Richie and Eddie could feel his nervousness from his spot down the table. Richie was talking Stan’s ear off but Stan didn’t seem to have minded, looking at the boy with small smile, chin resting in his hand. Mike and Ben seemed to be hitting it off, talking so quickly about books and history that Beverly looked like she was struggling to keep up.

While everyone seemed to be distracted, Bill, who was sat at the end of the table closest to Eddie, looked over to him and spoke quietly. “H-has Stan admitted it y-yet?”

Eddie didn’t need to ask for clarification. “He doesn’t need to, look at him.”

Stan was laughing, his hand thrown over the table, gripping Richie’s arm. Bill glanced over before looking back at Eddie. “I guess.”

“Have _you_ admitted it yet?” Eddie whispered.

Bill sputtered out a quick response. “W-w-what?” Eddie gave him a knowing look. “I-it doesn’t matter.”

“Stan will get over it, it’s just a silly infatuation. He’ll realize he’s annoying and you and Stan can fall in love.”

Bill rolls his eyes. “He d-doesn’t annoy a-anyone as much as he d-does you.”

Eddie chuckled. “Shut up, Bill.”

 

Stan doesn’t get over Richie. In fact, the seven of them hang out a lot more often and Stan becomes even more unbearable. It’s all _Richie this, Richie that_ and only Eddie had to deal with the constant lovesick ramblings. Stan still hadn’t admitted his little crush to anyone else and it was soon going to make Eddie’s head explode.

The group’s hang outs became more and more frequent as the year progressed and by the time May had rolled around they had begun to have weekly movie nights, all piling into one person’s living room with junk food and blankets. Stan always made sure he was sitting next to Richie and Richie didn’t seem to mind someone always paying attention to him. In fact, he even stopped teasing Eddie as much. English not only became a lot less eventful, but when they were at their movie nights, Eddie found himself awkwardly sitting on an arm chair by himself, often not looking at the screen but at Richie. He sat expecting some sort of smart comment to be thrown his way, a joke, a nickname, _anything._ But the nights always came to a close without anything, only a simple, quick hug as Richie made his way out of the door.

Eddie told himself he was being stupid, thinking that he did something wrong to make Richie finally give up on trying to be his friend. They were all friends, the six other kids were the best friends Eddie had had in a long time (besides Bill and Stan, of course). He just felt weird without the constant bickering with Richie. They had almost a year of throwing comments back and forth at each other that now Eddie felt like something was off balanced without it.

He guessed things were more peaceful now, but it just seemed _off._


	3. Junior Year: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for underage drinking in this chapter!

Eddie rolled into his Junior year of high school with more friends by his side than any other year of his life. He, of course, had his best friends still with him but now had four new people he would consider to be his best friends as well. He was overwhelmed by the idea at first, of having so many people that he could trust and he didn’t know whether or not he actually wanted to trust that many people. Growing up, trust wasn’t something that came easily to him but somehow this ragtag group of kids had wormed their way into his heart.

They also convinced him to take a ballroom dance class as his art elective and he was borderline considering killing Richie and Mike (who had practically forced his hand to write down the class on his request papers), so maybe the trusting thing wasn’t a good idea.

“Eddie, it’ll be fun!” Mike said, hand around Eddie’s shoulder as he brought him into the classroom on the first day of school.

“I can’t dance!” He protested, planting his feet on the ground as he was being pushed. Eddie wasn’t the biggest and Mike was extremely strong, so resisting proved to be futile.

“That’s why it’s a class, it’s only a year of your life and we’re going to learn.”

The pair walked into the classroom, met with the faces of Richie and Bev who were also taking the class. Stan, Bill, and Ben had gotten their art elective out of the way freshman year by just talking plain art, which Eddie wanted to take but couldn’t make his schedule work around it.

“Spaghetti!” Richie exclaimed upon seeing him enter the room. He walked towards them and stood on the side of Eddie that Mike wasn’t, wrapping his arm around Eddie’s shoulder as well and effectively trapping the smaller boy between them. He then leaned down and pressed an obnoxious kiss to Eddie’s cheek, causing him to groan and his stomach to flutter slightly. “Mike is such a great guy for bringing you.”

“I had no choice.” Eddie muttered and Bev smiled at him.

“Eddie, relax.” She said. “I’ll be your partner and we’ll dance and have fun and probably suck together.”

“Bev over here can’t dance for shit.” Richie grinned. “You two are a match made in dancing heaven.” Eddie looked at him with an expressionless face and the taller boy chuckled, reaching over to tap Eddie’s nose and releasing him from his grasp. “Mike is the sexiest dance partner there is, so we’re the sexiest match in heaven together.”

“God, that one was bad.” Mike laughed.

“Running out of material, trashmouth?” Eddie smirked.

“Not in your dreams, Eds.”

The rest of the class dispersed into pairs, a mix of friends pairing with each other for the sake of reducing the awkwardness and pairs that were forced together due to uneven numbers in their friend groups. The class was simple. The teacher would show them a dance move with her partner, the class would practice it, and then she would show them a new move and it would repeat for the entirety of the time.

Bev didn’t seem as awful as Eddie expected her to be, but to be fair he had low standards for dancing considering he couldn’t dance either. She was surprisingly comfortable to dance with though, conversations just flowing between them as they danced, not really paying attention to how they looked as long as they got the footwork right. Bev and Eddie were a good match as well, their heights complimenting each other as well as their rhythm, preventing any feet from getting stepped on.

Mike and Richie were the exact opposite of the two of them. Both being balls of energetic joy caused them to be jumping, rather than dancing, across the floor, avoiding hitting other pairs but frequently bumping into each other. Richie was only slightly taller than Mike and both tried to take the lead as they were dancing which lead to small little struggles that both Eddie and Bev could notice in their demeanors. The teacher came over to attempt to correct their form on more than one occasion but when she left to check on other dancers, they were back to their original chaotic nature.

The class ended with Bev and Eddie being slightly better dancers than before and Mike and Richie being covered in sweat, panting from exhaustion.

“How are you guys so…not sweaty?” Richie asked, slightly out of breath.

“We weren’t jumping around for an hour and half, that’s why.” Bev replied, looking the boys up and down. “We were doing this thing called dancing.”

“Hey, we were dancing!” Mike protested.

“I wouldn’t call that dancing.” Eddie put on a sympathetic look, placing his hand on Mike’s shoulder.

Richie scoffed. “You wouldn’t know dancing if it bit you in the ass, Eds.”

As the friends were walking out the door, their teacher smiled. “Great job today, Eddie and Beverly, you seem to have potential.”

Richie and Mike’s jaws nearly hit the floor as Bev and Eddie high fived, laughing as they walked out the classroom.

“B-but,” Richie sputtered. “I don’t get it, I know you two, and you can’t dance.”

“But we’re fast learners.” Beverly grinned.

Richie and Mike both just grumbled under their breaths.

  
Eddie had a lot of pride. Too much, some would say, because it did cause him to get into some trouble sometimes. If someone challenged him, he would usually go through with it. If someone insulted him, he would work to prove them wrong. And one thing Eddie Kaspbrak never did was admit he was wrong.

Eddie was sitting in the grass with Mike and Bill, the rest of their friends in the water near them. Eddie was laying down, head in Bill’s lap and feet in Mike’s, the two of them leaning against a rather large tree.

“Does Stan still have a huge thing for Richie?” Mike spoke up after a few minutes of silence.

“He doesn’t mention his name as much but maybe a little.” Eddie answered, knowing that Bill wouldn’t know the answer to the question as Stan only talked to Eddie about it.

“W-why do you think that?” Bill asked.

“Well, Stan didn’t know him before,” Eddie sat up only slightly. “He was just this…idea of sorts.” The silence from his friends cued him to go on. “No one can really know what a person is going to be like and actually talking to a person can cause other feelings.”

Mike chuckled softly, “So _Stan_ feels differently?”

“That’s what I’m guessing. Maybe he still likes him, who knows? But he’s not the same person Stan had such strong feelings for before.”

This time, Bill joined in when Mike chuckled.

“Am I missing something?” Eddie fully sat up.

“Are y-you speaking from experience?” Bill ruffled Eddie’s hair, causing the smaller boy to swat his hand away.

“What do you mean?”

“Having s-strong feelings before knowing w-who a person really is? And then ch-changing when you get to know the p-person?” Bill continued.

“Yeah, what?” Eddie pulled his feet in front of him so he could sit crisscross.

“W-well, you hated Richie before -”

“Disliked.” Eddie corrected.

Bill sighed. “Disliked Richie b-before and now you’re friends.”

“Yeah, _friends_.” Mike added on.

“Yeah, we’re friends.” Eddie gave them both weird looks. “What of it?”

“Well you were wrong about Richie. He isn’t as bad as you thought he was.” Mike explained.  
  
“You’re right. He’s worse.” Eddie deadpanned.

“P-pretend all you want, Eddie.” Bill smiled slightly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eddie stood up, placing his hands on his hips.

“Eds!” A voice came from behind him and he immediately knew who it was because only one person was annoying enough to call him that name.

Richie placed his arms under Eddie’s and picked him up, spinning and effectively getting Eddie wet again.

“Put me down!” Eddie protested.

“No.” Richie responded, putting his head into the crook of Eddie’s neck, his wet hair tickling Eddie’s face.

“Richie.” Eddie groaned.

“Oh, say my name, Eds.” Richie chuckled breathlessly, his lips grazing Eddie’s bare shoulder.

Eddie’s breath hitched in his throat, his face turning red. Bill and Mike smirked up at the pair in front of them but Richie couldn’t see them.

The emotion that could only be described as _“Fuck”_ hit Eddie like a truck when he realized what Bill and Mike had been talking about earlier. He was attracted to Richie. He never really looked at the other boy like that before, but now he glanced at the mass of curls out of the corner of his eyes and that’s all he could think about.

Eddie panicked, squirmed away from Richie but only succeeded in turning himself around, effectively being pulled against Richie’s chest. He held his breathe as he cheek was pressed into Richie’s shoulder, his body flush against the other boy’s.

“Richie, let me go.” His voice came out weaker than he intended.

“But, Eds, I’m cold and you keep me so warm.” Richie responded and Eddie felt his chin resting on the top of his head.

“Ugh, Richie.” Eddie pushed on his bare chest, creating space between them. Richie let go and Eddie walked towards the water. He glanced back and Richie was falling all over Mike. Eddie pursed his lips, angry at himself and let himself get into the cold lake water again, wading towards his friends.

“Back already?” Stan asked, hair pressed to his face.

“Yeah, Bill and Mike were boring me.” Eddie smiled.

“It didn’t have anything to do with you running from Richie?” Stan asked and Ben and Bev laughed.

“Uh, no?” It came out as more of question.

“It’s alright, Eddie.” Beverly came behind him and leaned her head on his shoulder. “We know Tozier is _oh so charming_.”

“Not to me.” Ben laughed.

“What?” All his friends had succeeded in making him thoroughly confused that day.

Stan just winked and splashed water at Eddie, the subject being dropped.

Maybe Eddie just had a ground-breaking revelation in his head, but he would be damned if he was going to admit it out loud. It was just a phase, one that he was going to force himself to get over quickly.

  
Life became a bit more difficult for Eddie since he realized he was attracted to Richie. It wasn’t like he _liked_ him or anything, but he was attracted to him. He found himself sneaking glances over at his friend on more occasions then were normal and quickly snapping his head away when anyone might notice. His stomach did flips when Richie touched him and his face turned red but not out of anger.

Richie wasn’t conventionally attractive. He had a mess of curly dark hair and was gangly and tall. He dressed in a way that Eddie had never seen before, a mix of band shirts and bright colors like he had never really discovered his style. His face was adorned with glasses half the time that were big and magnified his eyes. His smile was crooked and his voice loud.

Eddie supposed it was his outgoing and fun personality that got people talking about him and swooning over him. Eddie wasn’t oblivious to all the people in the school who liked his friend and he knew that Richie had had his fair share of hookups. Not in a stereotypical kind of way, but a day didn’t go by where he wasn’t talking to someone who was interested.

“Eddie. Eddie!” Someone’s voice snapped him out of his daydream and he looked to see Bev was waving a hand in front of his face.

“Sorry.” He breathed out, looking around. No one had noticed he zoned out.

He was in his history class, Bev sitting to his left side in the back of the classroom and Richie and Stan sitting in the front of the classroom. They had gotten assigned seats in the beginning of the year and had been lucky enough to have been paired off.

“What were you thinking about?” Bev smiled, putting her hand in her palm.

“Shush, we’re in class.” Eddie picked up his pencil and began writing notes again.

“Like you were paying attention before.” Bev rolled her eyes but picked her pencil up as well.

Not even 10 seconds later, a piece of paper was slipped onto Eddie’s desk. He glanced over to Bev, who was looking straight ahead at the teacher, a smile on her lips. Eddie unfolded the paper.

_There’s a party tomorrow, come to it. Everyone else agreed._

He wrote back a simple _“why?”_ and carefully slipped it back over to his friend’s desk. It returned in a few seconds after some intense scribbling from Bev.

_Because it’ll be fun?_

Scribbling down a quick _“maybe”_ , he threw the paper back to Bev. She just sighed but smiled and the two continued their note taking.

Eddie wasn’t sure when his friends had decided on going to the party but when he left class to go to lunch, his friends immediately knew that he had only given a _“maybe”_ as an answer.

“C’mon, it’ll b-be fun.” Bill said the minute he sat down at the lunch table.

“I said maybe, not no.” Eddie reminded him.

“We all know that your ‘maybe’s are almost always turned into no’s.” Stan pointed out.

“You two know I’ve never drank before.” He said to his best friends in a loud whisper, not wanting the others to hear. Eddie is sure they know but he doesn’t want to remind them.

“I’ll s-stay by your side the entire n-night.” Bill said.

Hearing this, Mike’s head snapped up. “Are you worried about us leaving you alone? I’ll keep you company, too.”

“We’re not going to pressure you, but some of us have never been to a party before. We just thought it’d be fun.” Ben looked at him with a sympathetic look.

“And if you don’t like it we’ll leave and never return.” Stan said dramatically, putting his hand over his heart like a pledge.

Eddie let out a deep breath and thought it over for a second. “Fine.”

At that moment, Richie sat next to him at the table. “Did you just agree to the party, Eds?”

“Yeah.” Eddie looked up at him slowly.

Richie was grinning widely. “This is going to be so much fun!”

“Calm down, I don’t even know if I’ll stay long.” Eddie put his hands up in defense.

“Oh, Eds. I’ll make sure you have the time of your life by my side.” Richie tried to put his arm around Eddie’s shoulder but the smaller boy shrugged him off softly so Richie poked him in the side. “Much like your mom last night.”

Eddie scoffed, looking at Richie with a hint of disgust.

The other losers just grinned at the two of them and continued eating.

 

It had been an hour since Eddie got to the party and he wasn’t sure if he regretted it or not (he was leaning towards regret simply because he was bored). Bill and Mike had not left his side since he got here, just like they promised. Richie had gotten him a drink he was “sure to like”, stayed with him for a few minutes and left with Beverly. Richie wasn’t wrong, the drink he had in his hand that he had been sipping wasn’t bad, he wasn’t sure what it was but Beverly and Mike had insisted that it was good as well.

Eddie wasn’t drunk, that was for sure. His head felt a bit fuzzy, sure, but he wasn’t close to being even tipsy as he got to the bottom of the drink. Mike and Bill were good company and he spoke to them, but most of the time he found himself just looking around the crowded house. Groups of people were scattered around the house, cups thrown around everywhere. Music was blasting and there was a large group of people dancing in what Eddie could only assume was the living room.

“Take this!” Eddie jumped at the voice that yelled directly into his ear and he turned. Richie was leaning down holding two small cups, handing one over to Eddie.

Eddie grabbed the cup, looking down into it. “What is it?”

“Tequila.” Richie said simply. “We’re going to have some fun.”

Eddie winced. “I don’t know.”

“Once you drink this, I won’t leave you.” Richie promised, sticking out his pinky finger like an 8-year-old.

Eddie handed Bill his old drink and linked pinkies with his now free hand. “I still don’t know.”

“You just pinky swore. Gotta do it.” Richie shrugged. “Drink it all when I say three, we’ll do it together.”

“All?”  
  
“It’s a shot, Spaghetti, so yes, all.” Richie smiled.

Eddie looked down nervously at his cup, his stomach churning with nervousness. “Okay.”

Richie gave him a serious look. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Eddie found himself nodding, maintaining strong eye contact as the two lifted their drinks up to their lips. “1…2…3!”

Eddie tilted the drink back, the liquid pouring into his mouth. He forced himself to swallow and immediately started coughing, his throat burning intensely. He looked up at Richie who didn’t seem to be in any discomfort.

“How…can you do…that?” Eddie coughed out.

“You get used to it.” Richie smiled, wrapping an arm around Eddie, who didn’t feel like shaking him off.

Another 30 minutes later, Eddie was, what he only could assume was, really drunk. Richie had given him another drink, something he said was stronger than the last, and given him another shot. Richie had drunk everything with him but Eddie could see from his behavior that he definitely had a higher tolerance. They were both sitting on one of the couches in a part of the house that had the least amount of people, the rest of the friends out in the party somewhere.

“Richie Richie Richie.” Eddie felt every word he said spill out of him before he could even think.

“Hmm.” Richie looked over to the boy.

“I don’t know.” Eddie giggled and laid across Richie’s lap, looking up at him. He reached up a hand and touched Richie’s nose. “Boop.”

Richie laughed, taking another sip of his drink. His eyes were glassy and he was a bit giggly, but nowhere near as far gone as Eddie. “You booped me, Eds.”

Eddie let another fit of giggles spill passed his lips. He smiled widely at Richie, his glasses slipping down his nose slightly. “Your glasses are funny.”

“Funny?”

“Well, not yours exactly. But glasses at all, like they’re just glass you put in front of your eyes that let you see and I don’t get it and also why is bad eyesight something people still have like shouldn’t it have been eliminated a while ago from evolution because it’s not…wait, it could be a mutation, oh that makes sense -” Eddie’s ramble was cut off by Richie putting his hand over his mouth.

“Yes, glasses are funny, Eds.” Richie agreed and felt Eddie smile beneath his hand.

“I don’t like it when you call me Eds sometimes.” Eddie said. “But other times I don’t mind.”

“Really, like when?” Richie’s eyes glinted with amusement.

“When you’re not teasing me.” Eddie answered instantaneously. “Like, when you just use it as a nickname, it’s okay. Because it’s like a cool nickname between us. Like just an us thing.”

“And us thing?” Richie questioned.

“Yeah, I wish there were more us things.” Eddie shrugged, turning his body to curl into Richie’s stomach. “You’re cool.”

“Just cool?”

“Cute, too, I guess.” Eddie grumbled. “But that’s it. Cool and cute. Good friend, too.”

“I think you’re cute and cool, too.” Richie spoke in a voice that wasn’t laced with the same confidence as his usual words.

“Really?” Eddie looked up.

“Yeah, very cute.” Richie tapped Eddie’s nose very softly.

Eddie gasped. “ _You_ booped _me_.”

Richie let out a laugh and ran a hand through Eddie’s hair, his head still resting on his lap. “Cute.”


	4. Junior Year: Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor warning for mentioning underage drinking in the beginning

“I was joking the other day, by the way.” Stan spoke in a hushed tone due to the fact that they were in the library as well as the fact that he didn’t want anyone to hear them.

“What day?” Eddie didn’t even look up from the book he was taking notes on.

“At the quarry, when I said you ran from Richie.”

At Richie’s name, Eddie dropped his pencil and tilted his head up to look at his friend. “Oh.”

“Everyone jokes about you two, so I did, too.” Stan shrugged.

“Oh.” Eddie repeated, biting his lip and urging his face to not turn red.

Stan gave him a look, letting Eddie know that he didn’t do a good job of keeping the color away from his face. “Do you actually…?”

“What?” Eddie urged him to continue.

“Do you like Richie?” Stan’s face was nearly expressionless but after so many years of friendship Eddie could detect faint traces of hurt in his eyes.

“What, no! What?” Eddie let out a forced laugh, speaking quickly. “Why? Don’t you like him?”

“Yeah, a little, but that’s irrelevant.” Stan brushed it off and Eddie pretended he didn’t feel the little twinge in his heart. “I would be fine if you did.”

“Cool, but I don’t.” Eddie picked up his pencil and twirled it through his fingers.

Stan’s eyes scanned his face, trying to pick up any sense of emotion, before he let out a breath. “Good, because I would be secretly bitter.”

“You have nothing to worry about.” Eddie looked back down to his book, his throat feeling tight.

“I know.” Stan laughed, but Eddie could feel the tension in his voice. “But we’d never let something as stupid as a crush get in between us.”

“Of course not.”

Stan just smiled brightly and went back to his work.

Meanwhile, Eddie was having an inner crisis. Did Stan know? How could he know, when Eddie himself only figured out he was attracted to Richie days before? Was he obvious with it now? _Oh, god,_ did he say something at the party yesterday? Bev told him it wasn’t bad and Richie confirmed, saying that he just babbled on a little bit, nothing embarrassing or life changing. But maybe he said something to Stan when they weren’t around?

No, he was just being paranoid. Richie messed with him frequently and Eddie messed back sometimes, it could be seen as flirty from an outside perspective. But Stan wasn’t an outside perspective and knew how all their friendships worked, Eddie and Richie’s being mostly founded on bickering.

Eddie clenched his eyes shut, willing himself to calm down. He took a deep breath and went back to his work, but a nagging voice in the back of his head kept telling him that Stan _did_ know.

“Hey, guys!” Eddie looked up to see Bill and Ben approaching their table in the library, Ben waving cheerily.

“Hey!” Stan smiled and scooted over in his chair, giving room for Bill to sit next to him.

“I didn’t know you guys were coming.” Eddie smiled, doing the same as Stan to let Ben sit next to him.

“W-well we didn’t know you w-were here.” Bill chuckled then looked at Eddie. “Working o-off the hangover?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Ben pushed his shoulder lightly with his own. “We’re not teasing, just concerned friends.”

Eddie let out a playful sigh. “If you must know,” He started then continued in a more hushed voice. “This morning was hell.” The other three grinned. “I’m fine now though, honestly.”

“I’m surprised you’re already alright, with the amount you drank and the fact that you’re a light weight.” Stan said, leaning his head in his palms.

“It was Richie’s fault.” Eddie grumbled.

“Which is why Richie took care of you the whole night.” Ben pointed out, opening his own backpack to dig out his work.

“He what?” Eddie looked around the table, where his friends were nodding. “I really don’t remember after the third shot, I think it was?” His words came out more like a question.

“Yeah, Richie w-was by your side the wh-whole night.” Bill explained. “Something about s-since he got you into the mess, he w-wasn’t going to leave you a-alone.”

“Oh.” A tiny smile spread across Eddie’s face. “That’s actually really nice.”

“Yeah, also you were all over him.” Ben mentioned.

Stan’s head turned slowly to Eddie and Eddie coughed in surprise. “I what?”

“I passed by you guys once and you were laid across his lap and Bev confirmed you were there the whole night.” Ben shrugged and picked up his pencil.

“Interesting.” Stan said slowly.

“I’m just…” Eddie scrambled for something to say to Stan. “A clingy drunk.”

“Yeah.” Stan looked back down to his work.

“It’s n-nothing, really.” Bill spoke up. “You were just b-babbling about god knows what the whole night. N-nonsense really. Kind of like Richie w-when he’s sober.”

Ben laughed and Eddie managed to let out a chuckle. Even Stan was smiling.

After that, the four of them got back to working on their school work, occasionally stopping to talk about random things but the conversation never got back around to anything involving Richie, which Eddie was extremely grateful for. He knew that Bill and Ben weren’t trying to start anything between Stan and himself, but the timing of their conversation wasn’t ideal. Stan technically hadn’t admitted his crush to anyone but Eddie that he knew of, even if it was something that everyone was suspicious of. And although Bill and Mike had joked with Eddie about Richie the other day, Eddie hadn’t, and would _never_ , say anything about the thoughts he’d been having about the other boy.

Eddie just hoped his drunk self wouldn’t try to sabotage himself again.

 

“Do you ever feel like someone else knows more about yourself than you do?” Eddie asked Bev as they were dancing around the classroom, attempting to perfect their foxtrot.

“Damn, bringing out the deep questions today, I see.” Bev laughed and stumbled for a second before the two got their rhythm back.

“Bev.” Eddie groaned, readjusting his grip on her waist. “I’m serious.”

“Okay, okay. Elaborate, please.”

“Like someone looks at you and just knows something about you and you didn’t even know yourself until they pointed it out.” Eddie said.

Bev paused for a minute, looking off to the side as if she was contemplating her answer. A small smile graced her lips as she looked back at Eddie, her eyes twinkling. “I know what you mean.”

“It’s weird.” Eddie simply stated.

“Very.” Beverly agreed, nodding her head with a smirk.

Eddie looked down at their moving feet, making sure they were getting their steps right before they started doing the more _“advanced”_ moves, as their teacher put it. He glanced over to Mike and Richie who, to be fair, had gotten a lot better in the months since the beginning of the year. It was only October, so a _lot_ of improvement was not expected, but Eddie thought they were looking more graceful in their movements, at least.

He looked at them and felt warmth in his body, the same warmth he felt any time he looked at any of his friends. A warmth that brought along feelings of happiness and gratefulness and comfort. But then, Eddie’s eyes wandered over towards Richie specifically, and he felt his stomach do that flippy thing it had been doing lately whenever he looked at the boy. It filled his body with anxiety and heat and the strange desire to vomit.

“You know it’s okay, right?” Bev interrupted his thoughts.

“O-okay?” Eddie stuttered a little bit, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu from his conversation with Stan a week before.

“We won’t talk about it if you don’t want to,” Beverly started to explain. “But, it’s okay.”

Eddie could only assume she was suspicious he was attracted to Richie, as the majority of his friends were, but he wasn’t about to bring it up and be wrong, unintentionally exposing himself.

“Why does everyone speak so vaguely?” Eddie asked, exasperated. “It makes things a bit difficult.”

Bev smiled, she was always smiling, no matter the situation. It made Eddie a little jealous that she could be so happy but also sometimes unsettled, like she always knew something everyone else didn’t. “I’ll be perfectly specific if you want.”

“Go for it.”

“You like Richie.”

Eddie snorted. “Excuse me, _like_ him? No.”

“ _Eddie._ ” Bev had put her stern mom face on, looking up at him (but only slightly).

“ _Beverly._ ” Eddie mocked her tone. “I’m not lying.”

Bev shook her head. “Oh, it’s obvious.”

“I don’t _like_ him.” Eddie repeated and then brought his voice down to a very faint whisper, bringing his face as close to hers as possible. “ _Attracted_ , yes. _Like_ , no.”

Bev let a massive grin spread across her face and Eddie thought if she smiled any wider, her face would split open in two. She went to speak but Eddie cut her off.

“Beverley Marsh, I swear to any god that may exist, I will murder you without a second thought if you mention this to anyone. Even Ben.” Eddie locked eyes with her. “And it will be a slow, gruesome murder.”

“Alright.” She let out a soft sigh. “Message clear. But it’s not that bad.”

“First of all, keep your voice down. Second of all, what do you mean not that bad? It’s _awful_!”

“Is this because of Stan?”

“You know about that?”

“First of all,” She was mocking him just as he had done to her only a minute before. “I could tell even before we were friends. Second of all, he told me.”

“He told you?” Eddie spoke a bit louder than he intended on due to his shock.

“Last year. Asked how to get over him. It didn’t really work.”

“You think?” He chuckled bitterly. “I think he wants to kill me.”

“Why’s that?”

“He asked me if I liked him, him being Richie, last week and said it would be fine if I did but he would be secretly bitter.” Eddie explained. “That’s what he said, but his eyes told a whole different story.”

“Ah yes, the eyes are the windows to the soul.” Bev said overdramatically.

“If you find me dead, just know that my best friend of over a decade did it.”

“See right there, you just said why this whole situation would be fine.”

“What do you mean?”

She groaned. “You boys are so thick sometimes. Friends for over a decade? A stupid crush isn’t going to get in the way of that.”

“You don’t understand.” Eddie looked at her with wide eyes. “He used to be obsessed.”

“ _Used to._ ” She said, nodding her towards him as if trying to make a point.

Eddie shook his head. “I’m not getting into this. I don’t like Richie, I couldn’t do that to Stan, end of story.”

Beverly looked at him for a while, scanning his face before she pursed her lips. “Okay.”

Eddie was momentarily shocked that she was actually going to let the topic go but he couldn’t say anything else to her before his body was bumped by someone much larger than him. He breath staggered for a minute when he realized who is was.

“Hey, losers.” Richie greeted them, running a hand through his hair.

“I’m your best friend, that’s basically insulting you, too.” Beverly quipped back.

Richie shrugged. “Never said I wasn’t a loser.”

Mike and Richie approaching them reminded Eddie to look at the clock, which showed they only had a couple minutes left of school, their dance class being their last of the day. He knew he didn’t have that much time left when he delved into the conversation with Bev but he didn’t realize it had gone so fast.

“I see you two are improving.” Eddie smiled at Mike, who’s face lighted up at the compliment.

“Thanks! I think it helps that Richie was a lot more tired today.” Mike joked, to which Richie gently pushed his shoulder in response.

“Yeah, tired ‘cause of Eddie’s mom.” Richie said loudly, a couple of students turning their head to give him a look.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” Eddie asked, more as a rhetorical question than anything else.

Richie, of course, answered anyways. “I’m only speaking the truth, Eds.” He wrapped an arm around Eddie, who didn’t shrug him off. He had started rejecting the other boy’s physically touches a lot less as of late.

“Not my name.”

Richie’s hand was rubbing circles on Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie’s stomach was doing flips that would rival a roller coaster. He could practically feel his heart thumping in his chest as he turned his head to look up at Richie. His eyes wandered across the boy’s face for a second, taking in the highs and lows, before Eddie brought his head back down to eye level, where Bev was looking at him with her eyebrows raised. Eddie just stuck his tongue out at her childishly and removed himself from Richie’s grip. He pretended he didn’t miss the feeling of Richie’s hand on his shoulder.

The feeling came back not even a minute later when the four of the them were walking out of the classroom and Richie grabbed a hold of Eddie and pulled him back slightly.

“Can you come over?” Richie looked at him without his usual joking manner.

Eddie blinked. “Um…”

“I need help,” Richie said quickly. “With my, uh, English paper.”

“Oh.” Eddie let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Yeah, of course.”

Richie reached up to ruffle his hair then caught up to Bev, saying something to her that made her laugh loudly. Eddie just sighed and picked up his pace.

 

Eddie tried to be the most reasonable version of himself he could be. The version with the least amount of regret and the most amount of decisions he was proud of. Not just okay decisions that lead he life in a direction that wasn’t disastrous, but decisions that he could look back on and say, _‘yes that was the right choice’_. Eddie thinks he fully regrets the choice to go over to Richie’s.

It’s not that he had never been to Richie’s house. He’d been countless times, both with the others and by himself. But not since his _revelation_. And now, he sat on Richie’s bed, legs crossed underneath his body as Richie digs through his backpack on the floor.

“If you could just, you know, read over it, that’d be great, Eds.” Richie said, not looking up from his bag.

“Only if you call me by my _actual_ name.” Eddie retorted.

“Not happening.” Richie pulled out a couple of pieces of paper, slightly crumpled but still in good condition. He handed them over to Eddie and joined him sitting on the bed.

Eddie immediately looked down to start reading over the paper but felt Richie’s eyes still on him so he glanced up slightly, their eyes meeting for half a second before Richie looked away, reaching for his bag again. Eddie looked back to the paper. He flew through the paper quickly at first, trying to catch basic mistakes. Upon not finding many, he read slowly, trying to take in the actual content of the paper. He knew Richie was smart, a lot smarter than he lead people to believe, but Eddie was thoroughly impressed with the paper he was reading. He didn’t understand why Richie asked him for help when he was obviously a lot more advanced than Eddie in the subject.

When Eddie was done reading, he just glanced up from the paper, not announcing he was finished. Richie was working on something else, his eyebrows scrunched up and his tongue between his teeth. Eddie watched as he scribbled things down and erased, scribbling again. It was his math homework and something in the back of his mind reminded him that Richie was in an advanced math class, some college level stuff. Much more advanced than Eddie. In fact, Eddie didn’t have any classes with Richie this year, the other boy in levels far above half of the group.

“You’re, like, really smart.” Eddie blurted out before he could help himself.

Richie stopped his work and looked at Eddie with a crooked smile. “Was that a compliment, Eds?”

“You’re doing college level math right now.” Eddie pointed out.

“It’s only calculus.”

“ _Only_ calculus.” Eddie scoffed. “You’re in college level history, too.”

“History is history.”

“Your paper is _flawless_ by my standards.”

Richie pushed his work off his bed, scooting closer to Eddie. “I try really hard. To do well, I mean.”

“It shows.” Eddie smiled.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I actually like learning and it might be the one thing I’m good at.” Richie’s looking down at his hands, messing with his fingers.

Eddie was slightly taken by his response and blinks hard. “Richie.” He sighed and reached out a hand to rest it on top of the other boy’s.

Richie turned his hand over so Eddie’s was resting in his palm. It wasn’t quite holding hands, but it felt almost intimate to Eddie. “I just want to get into a good college. Have something to be proud of.”

“Richie.” Eddie repeated, letting Richie start playing with his own fingers. It seemed to be a nervous habit that somehow Eddie had never noticed before. He wondered how much he didn’t actually know about Richie. “You have so much to be proud of.”

Richie swallowed hard. “Really? Like what?” It sounded like an actual question, rather than someone digging for compliments. Like Richie sincerely didn’t know what else there was to be proud of.

Eddie looked at him, his lips pursed and his eyes still locked on their connected hands, and felt a wave of sadness go through him. “First off, even as someone who isn’t a super sports fan, I can tell you’re good at baseball.”

“I’m alright.”

“You’re good. And evidently, you’re wicked smart. And based on your singing in the car, you have a pretty damn good voice. And don’t even get me started on how proud you should be about the type of person you are.” Eddie wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but they were flowing out of him before he could stop them. It wasn’t like how he felt when he was drunk, or mad, it was a more peaceful flowing. Like words that were stuck in the back of his head that his mouth never got around to letting out.

Richie finally lifted up his head and Eddie could hear him take a deep breath. Their eyes locked and the air around them shifted. It felt thick and heavy with emotion. Eddie felt like he was struggling to get air into his lungs as he looked into eyes that were swirling with so many emotions it made him feel uneasy. Richie’s mouth opened slightly, soft breathes leaving his barely parted lips. Eddie could see a flush rising on Richie’s cheeks and could feel his own face heating up. Eddie tried to look away but he couldn’t, it was as if he was entranced.

“Eddie…” Richie breathed out, his thumb now stroking Eddie’s hand.

It was that small action that allowed Eddie to look away, sitting up straight, and he attempted to break the spell in the room. “So, stop the pity party.”

Richie instantly shifted away from Eddie with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“But your paper really is good, a couple of grammar issues but that’s it.” Eddie picked the paper up from its place on his lap and handed it over.

“Thank you.” Richie’s voice was quiet and soft.

Eddie just smiled at him and thought back to the feeling that coursed through his veins when Richie looked at him, cursing himself for getting into this mess. His heart beat and breathing were slowing coming back to a normal, steady pace, having sky rocketed during the moments when the boys had locked eyes. But then Richie grinned at him, and those shot back up and that’s when Eddie Kaspbrak realized he was truly fucked.


	5. Junior Year: Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for underage drinking! (again, sorry)

Eddie tried to avoid any situation that would put him alone with Richie. Whether it was just walking in the hallway or sitting next to him in class or standing in the lunch line together. He hoped he was being too obvious with it, because he didn’t want to hurt Richie’s feelings. It wasn’t as if he was mad at him or anything, he just didn’t trust himself to be in the same room with him alone. His body had completely betrayed him. It went into a full-fledged panic around Richie and Eddie didn’t know if he could handle being alone with him without having a heart attack.

His plan was going great. Stay friends with Richie, but never be alone with Richie. Admire him from afar, but never get close enough that he could sense his panic. Hang out with Richie, but always with someone as a buffer. And never, _never_ think about his feelings. He didn’t want to put a name to whatever emotions had burrowed in his mind, no, he’d much rather ignore them. Much rather continue life like it had been before he decided to go and be stupid and catch feelings.

In fact, for a couple weeks, life was going great for Eddie Kaspbrak. Better than it had been since he realized Richie was actually attractive. But the world hated him, so of course, things couldn’t always go smoothly.

“Truth or dare, Ben!” Mike practically yelled, unaware of how loud he was being.

The losers were all in Bev’s basement, no adults anywhere near. Bottles of alcohol were scattered around them, snack bags littering the floor.

“Mmm, dare.” Ben responded.

“I dare you to take a shot of whatever Richie makes for you.” Mike smirked and Richie pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.

“Oh, Benny boy, you’re in for a treat.” He said and Ben groaned in a response, realizing the severity of what he had agreed to.

Richie picked up a cup from the table, looking around him at the various foods and drinks they had, grabbing a few, and going off to the kitchen. 

“Okay, Ben, go while we wait for Richie.” Ben nodded and spun the bottle sitting between them to determine who he would be asking. It spun quickly and slowed down, finally ending on Bill.

“Truth or dare?" 

“T-truth.” Bill responded and everyone leads out a chorus of frustrated noises.

“Lame.” Bev giggled, to which Bill just shrugged his shoulders.

“What is one thing that you’ve lied about to one of us?” Ben asked and Bev smiled, giving him a high five.

“That’s a great one, babe!” She leaned her head on his shoulder.

Bill glared playfully at him and leaned back on the couch, taking a sip of his drink and thinking for a moment. “H-how severe does it h-have to be?”

Ben shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be, just anything.” 

Bill made a humming noise and sighed. “Eddie h-had this green shirt in middle sch-school and I told him I l-liked it but I thought it w-was really ugly.” 

Eddie gasped, leaning over to shove Bill. “What?!”

“I’m sorry!” Bill covered his mouth with his hands.

“I feel so betrayed.” Eddie fell dramatically over Stan’s lap, placing a hand over his forehead as if he was going to pass out. Stan let out a laugh and flicked him on the forehead, making the other boy groan in pain, but he stayed in his position.

“I’m back!” Richie barged into the room, one cup in his hand. “And it is the most beautiful concoction I have ever made and my boy Ben is going to hate it.”

“Richie!” Ben yelled. “You couldn’t have at least tried to make it decent?”

“It’s a dare, sorry.” Richie shrugged, handing the cup over.

Ben looked down into the cup, several different colors swirling around and he nearly gagged. “Do I have to?”

“You chose dare.” Mike said.

Ben closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, bringing the cup to his lips. He let out a whimper and threw it back, downing the drink. He immediately gagged, struggling to swallow. Bev let out small giggles, but kept a hand on his back, rubbing in soothingly.

“What the hell was that?” Ben asked when he finally stopped coughing.

“I put vodka, fireball, some Cheeto dust, some milk, a couple of crushed vinegar chips, and some spices I found in the cabinets.” Richie grinned, sitting down on the couch, picking up Eddie’s legs and placing them on his lap. Eddie was now laying across Stan and Richie’s bodies.

“That’s foul.” Stan said, his nose crinkling up in disgust.

Eddie tried to get his body in check, his breathing quickening as he felt Richie running his hands up and down his legs. He looked up at Stan, who was looking around the room, watching the game continue on. He then looked over to Richie, who was looking at him as well. He felt his face flush and Richie smiled softly, taking a sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving him. Eddie’s whole body felt hot, with white hot flames stemming from the places Richie’s hands rested on him.

He finally got distracted from Richie’s eye burning holes in his when a screech echoed in the room.

“I love that game!” Bev had yelled.

“What game?” Eddie sat up, moving his legs quickly, his body squished between Stan and Richie. He felt the flames in his arm now as it pressed against Richie’s.

“Chicken. You know, when you lean in until someone chickens out?” Bev said. “Mike and Bill are going to play. I dared them too.”

Eddie let out a slight laugh, looking over at Bill and Mike whose faces were bright red, their bodies facing towards each other.

“Alright, lover boys, go on.” Richie said.

They moved towards each other until their knees hit, both of them sitting crisscrossed. Mike chewed on his lip nervously and Bill looked at Bev with a pleading look, she just shrugged and urged them to go on. They leaned in carefully, steadily. Their eyes were wide open, staring at each other and their movements were so slow it was almost as if they weren’t moving. Finally, they picked up their pace, leaning in closer. Their faces were within inches of each other, but Bill quickly whipped back, leaning all the way on his hands.

“Chicken!” Bev exclaimed and Bill let out a nervous laugh. 

“I guess I l-lose.” He smiled and Mike returned with an equally awkward smile.

“You guys are lame, I’ve never lost a game before.” Richie stated.

“Oh, yeah?” Ben scoffed. “How many times have you actually played?”

“Enough times.”

Maybe it was the alcohol running through Eddie’s body, not enough to put him out of it but enough to make him a bit braver, but Eddie spoke up loudly. “I’ve never lost either.”

Stan laughed. “Same question to you. How many times have you actually played?”

Eddie remembered briefly playing in middle school and kissing a girl for half a second before they both leaned back, screeching loudly. And that was the only time he had played. But he wasn’t lying, he had never lost.

“Plenty.” He lied.

“Then you two play.” Bev smirked.

“Uh…” Eddie looked at her dumbly and then to Richie, whose jaw fell open for a second before he regained his composure.

“Pfft, yeah, Eds, what, are you chicken?” Richie rambled.

“No!” Eddie protested. “I’ll play.” He felt Stan stiffen next to him. “It’s no big deal because I’ll win.”

“There can be two winners, you know.” Bev pointed out. “You both can keep your _winning_ streaks.” She put air quotations around the word ‘winning’.

“It’ll only be me keeping that.” Richie grinned.

“You wish, Tozier.” The words coming out of Eddie before he can stop them. He crossed his legs, turning to face Richie.

“We’re doing this?” Richie asked suddenly and everyone laughed.

“All bark and no bite.” Mike said.

“I bite!” Richie protested, causing everyone to laugh again. “Fine, fine!” He turned his body to Eddie as well. “Let’s do this.”

Eddie’s breath stopped for a moment before he smiled at everyone. “Never say I’m no fun after this.”

The two boys looked at each other, their chests rising and falling with deep breaths simultaneously. Then, at a pace significantly faster than Bill and Mike, they leaned in. Also different then Bill and Mike, they didn’t stop. Before anyone knew it, their faces were within centimeters of each other. They both paused for a moment, before moving again, their lips smashing together uncomfortably.

Eddie had kissed people before. Only two, but it had happened. The first was in the 6th grade, with a girl in the back of the school. They both were curious and kissed quickly, immediately running off afterwards, never speaking of it again. The second was his first boyfriend and when he kissed him, he knew that he did _not_ like girls. It was a silly middle school relationship that lasted about two weeks. And technically, if you wanted to count the girl in chicken, Eddie had kissed three people.

None of those three people could prepare Eddie for the two second kiss with Richie. He realized how much of a child he was when he had those other kisses and how much he was totally fucked at the very moment. Eddie’s heart stopped and he leaned back quickly, letting out a panicked gasp. Richie’s eyes were closed, his mouth open in an ‘o’ shape. Eddie’s brain had a million thoughts going through it, ranging from _“What the fuck did I just do?”_ to _“Fuck, Stan.”_ to _“I would give anything to do that for real.”_ , and he quickly shoved those thoughts deep down. Instead, he turned to his friends and forced a smile.

“I never lose.” He stated.

His friend’s eyes were wide, their faces full of shock, clearly not expecting that outcome from their little dare. Eddie didn’t even bother turning around to look at Stan, he could hear his strangled breathing from behind his back. Richie finally opened his eyes, his face red and his mouth twisted into a huge crooked smile.

“Eds, you were my first kiss!” He exclaimed, reaching forward to grab Eddie.

“Oh, shut up, trashmouth, we all know I wasn’t.” He pushed Richie off and stood up from the couch.

“We have a special bond now!” Richie yelled and Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Don’t make a big deal out of nothing.” He said and his voice came out slightly harsher than he meant it.

Eddie looked at Bev, who was slightly smiling at him with a knowing look, and Stan who looked to be equal parts hurt and murderous. His eyes swimming with pain but his mouth pursed. Stan got up as well, leaving the room without looking at anyone else.

“Stan!” Eddie called after him.

The room was silent, the air heavy.

Richie broke it with a loud voice. “Oh, oh, oh, oh _shit._ ”

“Finally putting the pieces together, Tozier?” Bev whipped her head towards him.

“This isn’t my fault!” Richie protested.

“It’s my fault. Oh, no.” Eddie felt his breath quickening and it was from panic this time, not the thrill of his less-than-real kiss with Richie.

“We d-didn’t think you were going to d-do it.” Bill spoke up.

“You know better than anyone that I’m competitive!” Eddie exclaimed. “I can’t help it!”

“Well -” Bill started but Eddie interrupted him.

“No, I’ve literally almost accidently killed myself because of it! Oh, _fuck_.” Eddie began pacing back and forth in the room.

“Eddie…” Bev breathed out.

“Richie Tozier, I will destroy everything you love and then murder you in a cruel, medieval torture kind of way if you ever use this against Stan.” Eddie turned to him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all you’re allowed to say about this whole situation to him is _maybe_ an apology for being so thick and not realizing his obvious nature. If I find out you’re using this to your advantage or to humiliate him, you _will_ be drawn and quartered.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t want to know.” Ben answered quickly.

“This is my fault, too, so I’m going to try to go fix this. Please no one follow us. Anyone who tries to mention anything about this will be tortured via rats.” Eddie said and ran out of the house.

It was dark outside, the losers planning on staying the night at Bev’s house so they didn’t bother to even look at clocks the whole night. Eddie wasn’t sure what the time was, all he was focused on was the silhouette of his friend down the street, illuminated by the street lamp.

“Stan!” Eddie called out but Stan didn’t seem to move.

Eddie moved his body in a decently paced run, trying to get down the street as quickly as he could. He didn’t have to time to grab shoes before he ran out, his bare feet now landing painfully on the asphalt street, most likely scratching them out. As he approached Stan, he slowed down, walking carefully towards the boy who was sitting on the curb, head in his hands.

“Stan.” Eddie repeated, softly this time.

Stan looked up, his eyes red, tears streaming down his face. “He knows now, doesn’t he?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Eddie said, sitting next to him on the curb.

“He’s going to hate me.”

“I feel like we’ve gotten to know Richie enough to know that he won’t hate you for this.”

“Have we?” Stan said weakly.

“Yes.” Eddie responded firmly. “He is not going to hate you, and if he does I will personally kill him.”

Stan seemed to calm down for a moment before his attitude shifted. “So, what, are you just gonna, like, date him now or something?”

“What?” Eddie choked out.

“Well you obviously like him.” Stan muttered.

“Um, no, Stan, I don’t.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Stan snapped. “You kissed him. And you knew I liked him. So, you obviously have to like him a whole hell of a lot to do that in front of me.”

Eddie felt all the guilt of his actions weighing down his body. He opened his mouth to respond but not a single sound came out, his brain wasn’t thinking of the right words for the situation.

“That’s what I thought.” Stan mumbled.

“I’m not going to date him.” Eddie finally managed to say. “I’m not. I’m not going to do anything with him.”

Stan sniffled, letting out a pitiful laugh. “That’s what you say now, just you wait.”

“Stan!” Eddie exclaimed. “Why the fuck would I date him when I know that you’ve been practically in love with him? Why the fuck would I want to destroy our friendship?”

“I was not in love with him.” Stan gasped.

Eddie giggled. “You were _obsessed_.”

“That’s not love.” He pointed out.

The both of them laughed, they laughed until the tears coming out of Stan’s eyes were from joy and not from heartbreak. They laughed until they forgot where they were, slightly tipsy in the street, and instead, they were back in elementary school, playing with chalk on the playground. They clutched onto each other, fitting together like perfect puzzle pieces that were always meant to join together.

When they finally began to calm down, their stomachs hurting in the best kind of way and their cheeks sore, they both sighed.

“I love you. I would never try to hurt you.” Eddie said.

“I know.” Stan nodded his head. “Doesn’t stop it from hurting though.”

“Yeah.” Eddie whispered.

“I love you, too.” Stan said, reaching over to squeeze Eddie’s hand. “We’re okay.”

“You don’t _have_ to be okay. You’re allowed to be angry with me.” Eddie squeezed back.

Stan scoffed. “I don’t need your permission to be angry with you.” Eddie laughed. “But I’m not. Might take me a few days to get over this all. Get over the embarrassment, _god._ ” Stan groaned.

“Don’t worry, no one will be saying anything about it.” Eddie put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. 

“Why do you say that?”

“I threatened Richie pretty hardcore.” He shrugged.

“Medievally?” Stan asked.

Eddie giggled. “You know me so well.”

Stan smiled and Eddie felt light again, the weight of a possibly ended friendship having floated away. The two sat on the curb, the only sounds being distant voices from houses and the steady stream of bugs. They sat in their own thoughts, a familiar mood in the air. Their bodies were pressed together still, providing a comfort that comes with knowing that had someone to go conquer the world with. That nothing could tear them apart. Not stupid high school crushes, not over a decade of having seen each other every day, and there wasn’t a doubt in their mind that they would survive for years to come.

Who the hell cared about crushes and kisses right now? Who the hell cared about Richie Tozier? Not Eddie. (Okay, maybe he did, but he wouldn’t ever say.)


	6. Junior Year: Part IV

The kiss wasn't mentioned. Neither was Stan's freak out. In fact, if Eddie wasn't there that night, he wouldn't have known that anything out of the ordinary happened. Unfortunately, Eddie was very much present for the whole situation. Very much aware now of what Richie's lips felt against his and very much aware of what it felt like to be afraid that his best friend would be gone forever.

But, the losers went back to being almost absolutely, completely normal. The only difference now was that Eddie could see a hesitancy in Richie's movements when he would say something to Stan. Almost like he was making sure that the words that would come out of his mouth weren't something that would be considered cruel. It was the first time Eddie had ever seen him think before he spoke, even if it was only slightly, and everyone agreed that it was a good thing.

Stan claimed that he was now over Richie, that he didn't care for him any more than a best friend should. Eddie didn't know if he was telling the truth or if he was saying that just for his sake. Because once secrets came out, there was no shoving them back in. Stan knew Eddie's secret that he had tried so hard to keep from him. To keep from everyone. But now it was like he could feel everyone's eyes on him when he was in the same place as Richie. Like they were staring at him, waiting to see what he would do next. He knew realistically that no one was actually looking, and it was his own feelings manifesting themselves into paranoia. But he didn't like the feelings. He was itching with nervousness all the time and wanted it to go away more than anything. And so began his plan to get over Richie.

It started where all deep conversations happen, in dance class.

"You know, we can switch dance partners if we want. After the test." Beverly said as they were practicing for their midterm exam. They would have to combine several dances to create one fluid 'masterpiece', as their teacher put it.

Eddie frowned. "Do you not like being partners with me?"

"No! Eddie, I love you." Bev smiled sweetly. "I just figured, you know, you had someone else in mind."

"Who?" Eddie asked dumbly.

"Richie!" She whisper-yelled.

Eddie's eyes went wide open. "Uh, no, I'll pass. That's not what I want."

"Yes, it is. I know you like him."

"I don't, we've been over this before. Attracted, yes. Like, no."

"That was forever ago."

"It was honestly not even a couple months ago."

Bev let out an exasperated sigh. "Exactly, forever ago."

Eddie matched her sigh. "Can't a person just be attracted to one of his friends in peace?"

"Not if that person would be so cute with his friend." She smiled.

Eddie glared at her. "Be quiet. It'll never happen."

"Nothing will ever happen if you keep flirting like you normally do."

"I don't flirt. If I did, I could definitely get a boyfriend." Eddie readjusted his grip of her waist, leading her further away from the majority of the class, not wanted them to hear his conversation.

"Prove it, date Richie." She grinned, and her eyes shown with mischief.

"I don't like him, though. Once, I like a person, I'll date them, I promise." Eddie spoke without thinking about it, suddenly aware that he had not had a high school relationship and didn't know a single thing about starting one.

Bev bit her lip, thinking. "Okay. But you actually have to like them, don't use someone just to prove something."

Eddie spoke with confidence that was fully faked. "Never. I'm gonna form a crush."

  
The world seemed to want Eddie to succeed, as only a couple weeks later, on the first day of the second semester, it brought a boy to his history class. He transferred from another class and he was cute. In a very conventional way, with light brown straight hair, green eyes, smooth, tanned skin, and a fashion sense that didn't look like he was going to a rave. Everything Richie wasn't. And, as luck would have it, a small little gay pride flag pinned to his backpack.

Eddie had been attracted to people before, but normally he didn't form crushes on people in such a short amount of time. But when the boy sat next to him at the beginning of class, pulled out a notebook and began taking notes in an organized way, with neat handwriting, Eddie swooned just a little bit.

The boy was someone who wasn't chaotic, he wasn't loud, he wasn't disruptive. He was polite (smiling at Eddie before he sat down), he was neat, and he was cute. Someone Eddie could very well see himself with.

At the end of class, Eddie put on his friendliest smile and stood by his desk. "Hey, I'm Eddie."

The boy looked up from packing his things and gave him a soft smile. "Logan."

"If you don't mind me asking, why'd you transfer?" Eddie tried to strike up a conversation.

"Just scheduling issues," He placed the last of his things into his bag and swung it onto his back. "I had to drop one class and take another, and things got complicated."

_Complicated_ , Eddie thought, _he definitely knew complicated_.

"Oh, okay." Eddie let out a small giggle. "Well, do you have anyone to sit with at lunch? I know since you changed classes, it messes with your lunch period."

"Actually, I don't know." Logan responded.

"Wanna sit with me and my friends? They're a bit crazy, but they're nice enough."

Logan let out a laugh. "Nice enough?"

"I know what I said."

The two smiled at each other and walked out of the classroom. Eddie found that he was incredibly easy to talk to. He was someone that didn't leave any awkwardness in the air, he was always talking but every word seemed to have a reason for being said. Nothing was said simply to just say it.

Eddie led Logan over to the losers' table in the cafeteria, the same table they've always sat at. The majority of them were already sitting so Eddie grabbed a seat from the closest table, dragging it over.

"Guys, this is Logan." Eddie announced, their heads turning to him. Only Richie and Mike were missing from the table.

"Hey!" Bill smiled in a way that seemed like he had spoken to him before.

"Do you know each other?" Eddie asked.

"We've been in a couple classes together." Logan answered.

"Oh, that's great." Eddie clapped his hands together, sitting down and looking at his friends. "Well, Logan is in my history class now, so I figured he could sit with us."

"Of course." Stan smiled.

Bev watched as the two sat down, her eyes squinted in a glare and her lips pursed. Eddie could see her trying to catch his eye, but he ignored her, keeping his line of site on Logan, who had started up a conversation with Bill. He was glad that Logan knew someone else at the table, it would make the whole situation a lot less awkward, especially if he ended up liking Logan enough to sit with him every day.

"What's up, motherfuckers!" Richie's voice boomed around them as he sat down in a seat across from Eddie. Logan jumped slightly at the loud noise, but the losers ignored him, used to his loud voice.

"Oh, hello." Mike sat down and immediately stretched a hand out towards Logan, introducing himself. "I'm Mike."

Logan smile, taking his hand. "Logan, I'm in Eddie's history class."

Richie turned his head towards the unfamiliar voice, looking the boy up and down several times. Then he looked at Eddie, his head cocked slightly in a questioning way. Eddie smiled at him, ignoring the pain in his chest.

"I thought he could start sitting with us." Eddie explained. "We got lucky this period with everyone sitting here so I figured an extra body wouldn't hurt."

"Yeah, sure." Richie grumbled and looked down at his food.

Eddie watched as Richie and Bev shared a glance before they went back to their food, Bev occasionally looking up at him. Eddie purposefully laughed at everything Logan said that could be considered even remotely funny, he made sure his chair was close enough that he could set his hand on his arm without it being strange, and he inserted himself into several conversations with Logan. Maybe he wasn't the best at flirting, but he was going to pull out all his tricks in attempt to get this boy to like him.

In fact, by the third week, Eddie was _exhausted_. He had flirted his little heart out, even asked Mike for some advice, and then flirted some more. He and Logan talked every day and Eddie didn't think he could be more obvious that he actually did like Logan. Eddie couldn't find anything wrong with him and found himself thinking less and less of Richie and more and more of Logan. He sat with them at lunch after history and he was beyond happy that his friends seemed to like him.

His friends seemed to be noticing his frustration with the situation as well, as Stan dragged him off to the side of the school after classes.

"Are you and Logan, like, a thing?" He asked.

Eddie sighed. "If the boy would stop being so oblivious and flirt back, we would be."

Stan narrowed his eyes. "Since when do you like him?"

"Since I brought him to the lunch table, Stanley." Eddie rolled his eyes. "Where have you been?"

"Excuse me for not knowing you have a crush on someone you've never told me about only weeks after you said you liked Richie, who you _kissed in front of me_." Stan let out a groan and leaned against the wall of the school building.

"I thought you were over that?"

"I am, but I wasn't then, and you did anyways. We've been over this -"

Eddie cut him off. "Been over what?"

"That you had to like Richie a fuck ton to do that to me. So, don't go backtracking on what you said."

"Why are you getting so pissy?" Eddie crossed him arms in front of his chest.

"I'm trying to understand what the hell you're doing here." Stan responded. "I'm not getting _pissy_."

"I'm flirting with a boy who I like and want to date. But I've been waiting for him to make the first move, that's it, that's the story. It's not a big deal." Eddie threw his arms in the air, trying to make a point.

"It's a big deal when it's out of character for you."

"You can't put me in a box, Stan. Anyways, I don't want to argue with you." Eddie turned to walk away but Stan grabbed onto his arm.

"Then look me in the eyes and tell me something. Just one thing." Stan said.

"What?"

"Just tell me you aren't doing this because of Richie." Stan's eyes were wide and hopeful.

Eddie took a deep breath, his eyes flicking down to where Stan was gripping his arm then back to his eyes. He liked Logan, he really did. "It's not because of Richie."

Stan's face fell but he let go and nodded nonetheless. "Okay." He said before walking away, leaving Eddie at the side of the building.

As he was walking away, he saw Logan and maybe it was the adrenaline rushing through his blood from the small argument with Stan or maybe it was his need to prove that this wasn't because of Richie. Because fuck Richie at this point, it was a little crush, and everyone made a huge deal out of nothing. But, Eddie ran up to Logan, his heart racing and stood in front of him, effectively blocking him from going anywhere.

"Hey, Eddie." Logan smiled widely. He was a couple inches taller than Eddie, nothing extreme but enough to have to look down at him.

Eddie smiled back and, before his brain gave him a million logical reasons not to, he threw his arms around Logan's neck and kissed him. The taller boy stumbled back slightly, and Eddie panicked for a moment before Logan kissed back, wrapping his arms tightly around Eddie's waist. Eddie kissed him with everything in him, desperate to put his emotions into the kiss. It was a nice kiss, Logan was the perfect height and his lips were soft, moving nicely with his own. And when they finally pulled apart, Logan let out a soft "Wow" that made Eddie giggle.

"I thought I was being pretty obvious that I liked you." Eddie said, a little out of breath.

"I didn't want to assume." Logan replied, grinning brightly.

"I invited you to sit with my friends the first day I met you. I haven't had any friends people in that group my whole life. Everyone else clearly knew I liked you."

"Oh." Logan's face flushed red and Eddie bit his own lip to stop him from smiling too widely. "Well, then do you wanna go out sometime?"

Eddie nodded enthusiastically and leaned up to kiss him again.

  
A week later, the two were official. It had taken only one date for them to decide they wanted to date for real and they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Whether they were just holding hands in the hallway, making out outside of school, or practically sitting on each other's laps during lunch, they were always touching.

Eddie was grateful to Ben, Bill, and Mike. As soon as they heard the news, they were beyond happy for him, congratulating them both. They let Eddie gush about Logan all he wanted, and they were at least interested in his stories.

The opposite of that was Richie, Stan, and Bev, who, from the moment Eddie announced they were together, hit him with a series of questions and intense statements like he was in an interrogation.

"Do you even like him that much?" Stan had asked.

"What do you know about him? I don't trust him, he could be a serial killer." Richie said.

"This is a bad idea." Bev had given him a look of pity. "Are you sure you want this?"

Eddie had yelled at each and every one of them, especially Beverly, who had been the one to tell him to go out and find someone in the first place. Stan and Richie had shut up as he yelled at her.

"Can't you let me be happy, Marsh?" He paced around the room. "I like him, I'm dating him, we're happy. You're the one who told me to fucking prove to you that I could flirt. So, I went and found a nice boy and you have no right to question that."

"Eddie…" She tried to speak but Eddie wasn't done yet.

"No. If you were my friend," He looked around at Richie and Stan as well. "If any of you were my friends, you'd be happy for me."

Richie was chewing on the inside of his cheek nervously, his hand coming up to run through his hair. "I'm sorry." He whispered.

Eddie smiled softly and let out an enormous sigh. "It's fine, Richie. But your guys' support means the world to me."

Richie smiled back but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm sure Logan will be good to you."

Beverly just let out a huff that Eddie chose to ignore, still looking at Richie. "I hope so."

  
Logan was good to him, and Stan and Richie came around, accepting him and even becoming friends. Logan had that type of aura about him that made everyone love him, much like Mike did. The two of them became the closest, their personalities being very similar. However, Beverly never did accept him. It made Eddie's blood boil, but he never brought it up, and if it bothered Logan, he couldn't tell.

Logan started to hang out with the losers during everything. He was invited to sleepovers and hang outs and study groups. He became a real part of the group and Eddie couldn't be happier. He had stopped thinking about Richie, unless it was as a friend, and he couldn't remember the last time in his life that everything was working out perfectly. When he wasn't freaking out or stressed and he could simply just live life as it came to him.

They dated for a few months and Eddie could see himself being with Logan for a really long time, but the first home baseball game of the season proved to be a disastrous night.

They all sat on the bleachers (well, stood, for the most part). Bev, with some help from Mike, had made a huge sign with Ben and Richie's names on it that she kept lifted up for nearly the entirety of the game. She cheered loudly, like always, and got the crowd to go along with it. Logan happened to be a huge fan of nearly every type of sport and joined her in the cheering. Bev, who still didn't like Logan, was so invested in the game that she ignored her feeling towards him, the two turning into a pretty good cheerleading team. Eddie sat next to Bill, cheering, but mostly laughing at their ridiculous friends, who were covered in more sweat than the players.

They lost the game, by quite a lot, but Richie ran towards the bleachers with a grin on his face, sweat flying from his hair.

"We suck!" Richie announced loudly, yanking Beverly into a hug as she laughed.

Ben approached slowly, significantly less cheery than Richie. "Why are you so happy about that?"

"Oh, c'mon, it's all about the fun of it." He ruffled Ben's already messy hair, who swatted his hand away.

"I actually think it's about the winning." Stan spoke up, crossing his arms.

"Oh, Stan, what would I do without your negativity?" Richie grinned.

"It's not negativity!" Stan protested. "It's thinking about the actual point of the sport."

Everyone muttered noises of agreement and Richie feigned hurt, clutching his chest. "Betrayal."

Eddie laughed and shoved his shoulder a bit, Richie fell into his body, wrapping his arms around Eddie's neck. "My Spaghetti, please don't tell me you're against me, too."

"Oh, shut up." Eddie pushed on his chest, trying to get him off.

"Eddie, the world could be against me, but I just need you." Eddie shoved him, hard this time, and Richie fell to the ground, dirt and dust being kicked up. He let out some curse words, groaning in pain. "Goddammit, why'd you do that?"

Eddie shrugged his shoulders and grabbed Logan's hand, linking fingers with him.

"Do you want to go get some food?" Logan leaned in, speaking softly.

Richie jumped up from his spot on the ground. "We're all going."

"Oh," Logan let out a noise of surprise. "I was just thinking Eddie and I could go."

"Actually," Bev stepped in, helping Richie brush off the dirt. "We all go out after the first home game. It's a tradition."

"Tradition?" Logan questioned and Eddie squeezed his hand hard, trying to get him to stop talking. "Haven't you only been friends for a year?"

"We did it last year." She responded, poison in her voice.

"Is it really a problem if my _boyfriend_ and I go out?" Logan let go of Eddie's hand. Eddie tried to grab him again, but Stan pulled him back.

Eddie cursed himself for not fixing the issue with Bev and Logan when it started.

"Your _'boyfriend'_ ," Bev put air quotations around the word. "Was my friend first and deserves someone better than you."

"Beverly!" Ben and Eddie yelled at the same time.

"Why do you say that?" Logan asked, his jaw twitched.

"You're _boring_ , Logan, can you really not see that? I don't know what Eddie sees in you or how he could go from wanting passion to wanting mediocrity."

"Beverly fucking Marsh, shut up!" Richie grabbed onto her waist, trying to yank her away.

"No, Richie," She pulled away. "You all decided you were going to accept him but we all questioned why Eddie started dating him. It was out of nowhere and we still don't know shit about this guy."

"It's been a while, we know him now." Stan spoke up, who was still gripping Eddie's arm.

"We questioned it for a reason." She shrugged.

Logan took in a large breath. "You're a bitch, you know? I tried my best to like you because you're Eddie's friend but don't think for a moment that I didn't see your facial expressions or hear what you said about me."

"I wasn't trying to hide it."

"Eddie, I'm leaving." Logan turned to him.

"Okay, we'll go." Eddie tried to walk towards him.

"You're going to leave with _him_!?" Bev screeched.

"No, I need to go alone. Go continue your tradition." Logan said, smiling.

"No, Logan, I'll go with you."

Logan just shook his head and before he could even begin to walk away, Eddie grabbed Ben's baseball cap from his hand and started smacking Bev with it.

"What -" _Hit._ "-the-" _Hit._ "-fuck!" _Hit._

"Eddie, you know I don't like him." Bev tried to defend herself from him.

"That gives you _no_ right!" He screamed. "He is my boyfriend, not yours. You don't even have to be friends with him! He's my boyfriend! How could you act like that, so fucking immature?"

"He was trying to get you away from us!"

"He didn't know!"

"Oh, I'm _sure_." Her voice was laced in sarcasm. She turned to Ben and Richie, who were standing behind her. "You guys agree with me, don't you?"

"Bev, you know I love you," Ben started. "But that was out of line."

"I was defending Eddie!" She protested and walked towards Richie. "You would've done the same thing!"

Richie shook his head softly. "Eddie likes him."

Bev screamed out in frustration and turned on her heel, stomping away. Ben chased after her and Eddie could hear him trying to talk her down. He turned around, trying to see if Logan was anywhere to be seen, but he must've left during his yelling at Bev.

"I'm s-sorry, Eddie." Bill whispered, finally speaking up after everything, his stutter coming out due to the stress of the situation.

"We like him, you know." Mike spoke as well. They both tended to stay out of drama when it was happening.

Eddie chewed on his lip, hard. He could feel it getting raw and was sure it would start bleeding if he didn't stop. He was trying to stop the tears from spilling out of his eyes. "Why?" He asked softly, his voice breaking. "Why would she do that?"

"I don't know." Richie whispered, pulling him into a hug. Normally, Eddie would be disgusted with the dirt and sweat on his body, but he was too focused on what had happened to care. "It'll be okay. Logan knows that it wasn't your fault."

  
Logan didn't care whose fault it was. The next day, he showed up to Eddie's door with a nervous look on his face. And when he left, Eddie burst into tears, his first real relationship now over. Stan and Bill were over in mere minutes and Eddie cried himself to sleep, his best friends stroking his hair.

_Fuck Beverly Marsh._


	7. Junior Year: Part V

Eddie thought he could get over it. He really did. He thought he would be able to go to sleep that night and forgive Beverley and then everything would be fine. But instead, when he showed up to school the next day and saw her, his blood boiled. He tried to avoid her, he didn't glance in her direction when he passed her in the hallways and he purposefully said hello the people near her, but not her.

The problem was his dance class. Bev was his partner and that was a definite _no-go_ situation. He got to the class early, leaning right inside the door. People walked in, chatting away with their friends and Eddie kept a sharp lookout for the person he was avoiding and the person he was waiting for. When the mess of dark curls walked through the door, Eddie grabbed his arm and yanked him towards him.

"Yikes, Eds!" Richie rubbed his arm where Eddie had grabbed. "Be a little gentler with me, I'm precious cargo."

Eddie scoffed. "Precious cargo, my ass. I need a favor."

"After you just told me I _wasn't_ precious cargo? I don't think I can do anything for you." Richie crossed his arms and turned his nose up.

"Richie, please." Eddie begged, placing his hands on Richie's shoulders. "I need you to be my dance partner."

The taller boy's head turned down quickly. "You want to dance with me?"

" _Want_ is a loose term. More like need."

Richie placed a hand over his heart and a mock scandalized look made its way across his face. "You _need_ me, Eds? Is this really the place to have this conversation?"

"Richie!" Eddie groaned. "Beverly is my partner right now. I can't…just please?"

Richie laughed and threw an arm around Eddie. "Oh, Mike and I already talked about this, I was planning on being your partner before I stepped foot into this classroom. I just like to hear you talk about how you _need_ me."

Eddie took a deep breath and wiggled out of Richie's grip. "I changed my mind, I want to be Mike's partner."

The universe had a very strange sense of humor and it seemed to like to be directly involved in Eddie's life. So, not surprisingly, the teacher started the music at that second, not giving Eddie enough time to look for Mike in the classroom. Richie reached over and grabbed onto Eddie's hips, pulling him flush against him. Eddie's breath caught in a way that it hadn't since before Logan.

"I led with Bev." Eddie spoke in a soft voice.

"Mike and I switch." Richie grinned, moving one hand up to Eddie's shoulder and placed his lips next to his ear, speaking in a low voice. "I'm versatile, Eds."

"Just grab my hand, you idiot." Eddie placed his hand on Richie's hip hesitantly and grabbed his hand without giving it a second thought.

They began each class with a simple waltz that Eddie knew by heart, having done it for over a semester now. But Richie seemed to throw him off. Not only was he taller than Eddie, throwing off the traditional look and feel of a dance, but he was in a different headspace than he was with Beverly.

Richie danced smoothly and with grace, a strong contrast between how he was on a normal basis and how he was with Mike. He showed none of his chaotic nature, just light breathing and the occasional witty remark directed at Eddie. But Eddie kept stumbling, his body not moving how it normally would and he couldn't quite get into the rhythm.

"You doing okay, Kaspbrak?" Richie asked.

Eddie looked down at his feet, trying to count the steps in his head. "Yeah, just can't get the rhythm that's all."

"Do you want to switch?" Richie leaned his head down to catch Eddie's eyes.

"What?" Eddie looked up.

"Tradition is sometimes the way to go, you might find it easier to follow since you're shorter." Richie went to move their hands.

"I'm not short!" Eddie protested.

"Hey, hey, I didn't say short." Richie grabbed Eddie's hand and moved it to his shoulder. "I said shorter."

"I don't know how to follow." Eddie whispered.

"I've got you." Richie smiled.

It was a weird sensation, doing all the steps backwards. On more than one occasion, Eddie tripped and would've fallen down on his ass if it wasn't for Richie's grip on him. By the end of their warmup, Eddie was smoother with the dance but it wasn't even close to being as second nature as dancing with Bev had been, simply due to practice.

They moved on to the dances they were working on that day, they were being introduced to more Latin dances, which Eddie knew in the back of his mind were more sensual than basic ballroom dances could ever be. Thankfully, it was new for both of them and most of the class consisted of laughing and tripping over each other's feet, nothing sensual in nature. And when the class ended, Eddie had nearly forgotten why he wasn't Richie's partner to begin with or why he switched.

Both reasons came flooding back to him when Richie smiled softly at him at the end of the class, his hand trailing down his arm and stopping for a brief moment for their fingers to touch, making Eddie's heart beat at an alarmingly fast (and probably unhealthy) rate. Then, not even seconds after, another hand grabbed him and when he turned, his body was filled with rage.

"Eddie, can we talk?" Bev asked, her face not full of its normal confidence.

He pursed his lips and tried to pull himself out of her grasp. "No."

"Please." She loosened her hold on him.

"No." He repeated and turned on his heel.

She followed him down the hallway, but he refused to look at her, just scoffing at her voice. "I didn't mean for all of that to happen, I…I was just pissed off. And that's no excuse, _I know_ , but I didn't mean -"

Eddie cut her off. "Didn't mean for what? For your harassment of my now ex-boyfriend to lead to him wanting to leave me? What did you expect to happen? For him to be joyful that one of my friends hated him?"

"I just -"

"You just didn't think about anyone else but yourself."

"I was totally thinking about you!" She exclaimed, stepping in front of Eddie and preventing him from continuing to walk.

"Yeah, ruining my first real relationship was great, Bev, I loved it, thanks." Eddie spoke with such disdain that it practically dripped.

"That's not what I meant." Her voice dropped to a soft tone.

Eddie swallowed hard. "Maybe, maybe not. But that's what happened. So, give me time to not have the urge to murder you."

Beverly let out a shaky breath and opened her mouth like she was going to protest but instead just nodded her head, stepping to the side and letting Eddie continue walking. They had made a bit of a scene in the crowded hallway of the school, some heads having turned to watch them, and Bev just sent them glares, watching as Eddie walked away from her. She let out a frustrated groan and clenched her fist, walking the opposite way.

  
With each passing day, Eddie's urge to murder Beverly went down. He had to keep reminding himself that this was _Bev_ , one of his best friends. He had every right to be mad (and he still was) but he kept telling himself that murder was a bit much. He finally decided that he shouldn't kill her when Bill asked him if he wanted to go to the quarry after school, the heat of the incoming summer finally making its way to them all the way up in Maine, letting them all know that there were mere months left until school was out.

He rode his bike (Despite being 17, he didn't have a car. In fact, hardly anyone did in Derry as the town was so small that riding your bike was smarter. Not to mention, cheaper) down the familiar route for the first time that year but certainly not even the 100th time in his life. He arrived to the majority of his friends already in the water, screaming and splashing around and Eddie felt like he was back in elementary school and the crushing weight of impending adulthood wasn't surrounding him.

Stan walked up behind him as he was leaning his bike against a tree and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You know, as much as I like Bev, I'm still willing to hide a murder for you."

Eddie grinned. "I've always said you would be the one I would go to."

"I watch enough crime shows to make sure you get away with it."

Eddie let out a laugh, covering his mouth briefly with his hand. "I'm not murdering her." Stan raised an eyebrow. "I promise!"

The two begin walking towards the edge of the water. "You know who to call."

Eddie felt a hard force run into the side of his body, knocking him to the ground. "Ghostbusters!" Richie yelled into his ear.

"Fucking hell!" Eddie groaned, sitting up in the dirt. "Try not to give me a concussion next time."

"You know that wasn't my intention, Eds." Richie looked down at him with wide eyes.

"I swear, you're the most chaotic force of nature I've ever seen."

Richie offered his hand to Eddie, helping him up, and brushing some of the dirt off his shirt. "It's one of my finer traits."

Eddie could hear Stan scoff behind him, but he was just grateful that the two of them could bicker like this again. Ever since they became partners in dance class, the natural flow of their relationship returned, the easiness had previously been lost when the infamous kiss occurred.  
Richie tapped Eddie's face lightly with his palm and turned around, running back into the water with a screech. He could see Bev in the water looking at him, she immediately snapped her head away when she noticed that Eddie had caught her looking. Eddie went to put his bag down, stripping his shirt off so he was just in his swimsuit.

"So, there's two problems we could face today." Stan spoke before they went towards the water.

"Two?"

"The first one is the obvious where we have to cover up a murder."

"Obviously." Eddie resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"The second is that you jump on Richie's dick the moment you two get near each other in the water."

Eddie let out a choking cough, his eyes wide. "Stan, what?"

He gave Eddie a pointed look, a smirk playing on his lips. "We're back to the same exact position we were in before Logan."

"You thought I would jump on his dick?" Eddie spoke in a low, offended voice.

Stan's face fell flat as he stared at Eddie. "I don't care what you do, just please get your fucking shit together so we all don't have to deal with it any longer."

Eddie was left with his jaw slightly hanging in shock as Stan joined their friends in the water. It took him a minute to snap out of his daze, but he joined them as well. The water was still cold, despite the hot air around them. It always took a while for the body of water to heat up to the point that it didn't threaten to freeze Eddie's toes off, so they always had to run into the water without a second thought, ignoring their bodies' protesting and the slight pain in their limbs. Eddie ran straight into the water, immediately jumping onto Mike's back and pulling them both briefly under the water. They came back up with laughs spilling from their lips and Richie yelling for a chicken fight.

It was harder than Eddie thought to continue being angry with Beverly. Their group interacting with such a natural energy that before he knew it he was being held up on her shoulders and giggling into her side, splashing around in the water. It was moments like these that Eddie was the most grateful for in his life, the times where he could forget about the problems in his life and live in the present, just loving his friends and loving his life and not giving a single damn.

As the sun went down they all ended up laying on the grass, sprawled all over each other. Eddie had his head on Bill's lap and his feet on Ben's. Mike's head was on his own lap and the others were spread out in various positions as well. They weren't talking much, just basking in the cooling air and taking in the sweet feeling of their little family.

"You know w-what this means r-right?" Bill spoke up.

"What?" Mike responded.

"Today w-was the first warm day. That m-means we'll be seniors s-soon." He answered.

"Fuck, Bill, don't get all touchy feely on us now." Richie yelled out.

The others laughed but they all knew that Bill was right. Their days as juniors were numbered. With summer came the end of the school year. And this time it meant that they were seniors. The top of the school. It also meant thinking about their futures, about hopes and dreams, colleges and careers, adult shit that everyone wished they could put off.

"Where are you guys thinking of going?" Ben asked. "Like, for college."

"No!" Richie yelled and jumped onto Ben, putting a hand over his mouth, preventing him for speaking. "We're not doing this right now. We're fucking juniors. I know we're almost not, but right now we still are and now of you are doing this shit to me."

Bev shoved Richie off her boyfriend with a laugh and Ben was grinning.

One by one, each of the losers left. It was starting to get dark and they all had thrown on their sweaters they had shoved in their backpacks because the air was now starting to sting their skin with its cold. Soon, it was just Richie and Eddie laying in the grass. Eddie briefly wondered if Stan had planned that and cursed him in his head. They lay next to each other, far enough to not be touching, but close enough so it wasn't awkward.

"You thought about the future at all, Eds?" Richie rolled over, so he was laying on his side, propping his head up with his hand and looking over at Eddie.

Eddie mirrored his action and chose to ignore the nickname. "I thought we weren't talking about that today?"

"Well, I want to talk about it with you."

Eddie took a deep breath. "I haven't thought about it much. Don't want to really."

"Really? Eddie Kaspbrak, who loves to make sure everything is planned, hasn't planned out his _future_?" Richie laughed and sat up.

"I don't want to." Eddie repeated and stayed laying on the grass. He lowered his voice so it was barely a whisper. "It scares me."

"Scares?" Richie reached over and grabbed a hold of Eddie's hand, pulling him up to be sitting across from him, their knees touching.

"Yeah, aren't you?" Eddie tried not to make eye contact with him.

"Eddie, I'm fucking terrified. I don't know what I want to do, much less where I want to go." Richie chuckled, but it wasn't out of amusement, it was dry, as if he was laughing at himself. "I just didn't expect you to be."

"I'm not all that, Rich." Eddie shook his head.

Eddie felt Richie's hand reach under his chin, lifting his head up. Their eyes met and Richie smiled. "You're everything, Kaspbrak."

Eddie scoffed in response. "I'm in the same boat as everyone else, I don't know what I want."

"That's not at all what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

Richie didn't respond right away. They stayed looking at each other and Richie reached down and began stroking Eddie's hand with his thumb. An action that brought back all the emotions that Eddie was trying so hard to push down deep into his chest, lock up so they could never see the light of day. Richie was drawing shapes, circles and triangles and random squiggles that couldn't be deciphered, but they stayed looking at each other.

Richie finally took a deep breath. "I mean you're Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. You're a firecracker of a person with enough smarts for a whole school and enough rage for a Roman army. You're kind to everyone but you don't take anyone's shit."

"Richie, stop."

"You are more spectacular than anything I have ever seen." Richie looked as if he was about to cry and Eddie was pretty sure that he was already crying, tasting the salty tears in the corners of his mouth.

"Stop." Eddie repeated, his voice coming out a lot weaker than he expected.

"You want to know the only thing I know for certain about my future?" Richie asked and when Eddie didn't respond he continued. "All I know is that I see you in it. In every version."

  
Nothing happened after their talk. They stayed silent for the next five minutes before they both silently agreed to leave, going back to their respective homes. And nothing happened after that day either. It was a common move for Eddie and Richie, something major happening between the two of them and then going back to pretending it never happened.

Life went on. They got surprisingly amazing at dancing together, so much that the teacher asked if they had been taking lessons on the side because their flow together was some of the best she'd seen between two people. Richie continued to play baseball and Eddie continued to cheer from the bleachers, always get a sweaty hug from the player at the end of the game. They continued to bicker (or flirt as Bev and Stan so gracefully put it when they would yell at Eddie).

The problem was that Eddie hated himself. Like, actually hated himself. When he looked at Richie, he felt the all too familiar butterflies in his stomach that he thought he had personally strangled to death. Everything was back and he wanted to lock himself up into his room and starve the emotions. No Richie, no emotions. But he couldn't do that, and he showed up to school every day and hated himself a little more.

And the last day of school came and Eddie wasn't sure if he should be flooding with joy or not. On one hand, no seeing Richie every day. And on the other hand, _no seeing Richie every day_.

As if he was reading his mind, Stan walked up next to him as students quickly flooded out of the school once the last bell of the day rang.

"You can't avoid him this summer." He said bluntly and didn't allow Eddie to respond before he continue talking. "I need to tell you that I'm sick of this shit and I will no longer be your guidance counselor for your stupid crush."

"W-what?" Eddie choked out.

"Get your shit together or stop frickin' complaining." He smiled too sweetly for it to be genuine and walked away.

Before Eddie could regain his composure, the devil himself wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

"We're making this the best summer we've ever had, okay, Eds?" Richie bent down and spoke directly into his ear.

"Whatever you say." Eddie struggled against his grip a bit, not enough to actually make him let go but enough to make it seem like his body wasn't begging for Richie to never let go.

"Trust me."

And despite everything in his body telling him that Richie Tozier was the last person he should trust, Eddie did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by the way, the next chapter will be a mini chapter showing the summer between their junior and senior year


	8. The Summer Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mini chapter showing some events of the losers' summer between their junior and senior years.

The sun burned down on all of the losers' necks as they rode their bikes through the streets. After so long riding together, they tended to fall in a formation of sorts, Bill always leading them on his trusty bike he called his most prized possession. Eddie fell to the back this time, peddling slowly and taking in the summer heat.

It was only a few weeks into the summer, the tans on him and his friends starting to show up and freckles blooming on their faces. Eddie's hair was getting longer, curling up at the ends like it typically did during the summer. He tried to be more carefree about things during the summer, his hair unruly and his knees scraped.

"Hurry up, Eddie!" He heard Mike yell from towards the front of the group. Eddie was starting to fall behind.

Richie turned his bike around, riding the opposite direction of everyone until he reached Eddie, then continued at the other boy's pace.

"What's up, Eds?" Richie lifted his hands off his handles for a minute, pushing his hair out of his face, successfully biking without holding on for a good minute, something Eddie was never able to do. "You feelin' alright?"

Eddie smiled. "Yeah, of course."

"Well then, race ya!" Richie grinned and peddled quickly away.

Eddie laughed and quickened his pace, passing by his friends until it was only him and Richie zipping down the street. He wasn't sure where they were racing to, as they were biking without a real destination, but Eddie was happy to go anywhere with Richie.

  
A couple more weeks into the summer, Eddie's skin was successfully tanned a dark color and Richie's freckles were covering his face. Although the boy burned more than tanned, you could see the amount of sun he got from the massive amounts of dots adorning his body.

The losers were all sitting in Bev's basement, a cheesy horror movie on in the background, no one really paying attention. Eddie sat with his legs sprawled over Richie's, his back against the arm of the couch.

"Bill, would you rather fight a shark or a bear?" Bev asked from her spot resting in between Ben's legs.

"W-well, am I in the water or on land?" Bill, whose stutter had gotten better responded.

"If it's a shark, you're in the water. Bear, you're on land." Stan answered instead. "You gotta make it hard."  
Bill pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. "Bear. At least I wouldn't d-drown or anything." There was a murmur of agreement from them all. "Okay, Mike, would you r-rather jump off a building or jump out of a plane?"

"Why would I do either?" Mike let out a scoff.

"Why would I fight a f-fucking bear?" Bill laughed.

"Like, do I have a parachute?"

"Sure."

"Building."

"Lame!" Richie yelled out. "Fucking go skydiving! That's the obvious right answer."

Stan rolled his eyes. "There's no right or wrong answer."

"That's what you think." Richie winked.

"Fine," Mike said. "Then Richie would you rather move thousands of miles away from Eddie or live in the same town but never speak to him?"

Eddie choked on the water he was drinking, coughing and sputtering, and stared at Richie.

"That's not fair." Richie grabbed onto Eddie's ankles, still resting on his lap. He looked straight ahead, not glancing at in the other boy's direction. "There's no good answer!"

"Ah, but is there a right one?" Stan teased.

Richie huffed. Eddie sat up and pulled his legs away, scooting close to Richie so their arms were pressed together by the shoulders, elbows, and wrists.

"I would rather be miles away." Eddie answered, Richie not looking like he was going to say anything any time soon.

"Why?"

Eddie swallowed hard. "I don't think I could handle seeing him every day and not being able to talk to him. At least from miles away, we would still be friends, I'd still have him, I'd still mean something." Richie let out a soft breath and Eddie could feel him staring. He glanced over and their eyes locked. "That's how I feel." He looked away quickly.

The room got quiet.

"Let's watch the movie." Ben spoke up.

Eddie could feel Richie's eyes on him for the rest of the night.

  
It was a week before school started up again and Eddie was laying on Stan's bed with him, staring up at the ceiling.

"Have you started your college applications yet?" Stan asked.

"No." Eddie responded, a bit ashamed.

"Really?" Stan turned his head to look at his best friend. "I thought you were going to start weeks ago."

"I was." Eddie whispered. "I can't decide where to go."

"Apply to a bunch and decide later." Stan shrugged. "That's what I'm doing. Place your eggs in a million baskets rather than one."

Eddie chuckled and hummed in approval.

After a few minutes, Stan spoke up again. "Where's Richie applying?"

Eddie took a sharp breath. "What does that matter?"

"Are you going to follow him?"

"I'm not the following type."

Stan let out a sigh. "Then are you going together?"

"He's applying to places all over the west coast." Eddie rolled over on the bed and leaned his head against his elbow. "And my life choices are not going to be dictated by a pathetic crush."

Stan laughed, his stomach shaking from his spot laying on the bed.

"That's my logical side speaking." Eddie said.

"Hm?"

"I have a problem."

Stan sits up, crossing his legs under him, ushering Eddie to go on.

"My logical side says not to let a _boy_ affect my choices. But there's another side, a stupid, illogical, annoying, love struck side of me, that wants to go with him." Eddie bit on his lip nervously.

Stan swallowed hard. "What do you want me to say?"

"Tell me to kill that side of me. Tell me to drop that stupid boy from my thoughts and to stop these stupid feelings."

Stan let out a soft breath. "Do you love him?"

Eddie bolted upright, nearly losing his balance and falling off the bed. " _No!_ God, _no!_ "

Stan stared at him for a minute, his eyes darting around his face. "Okay. Then you're not going to even apply to colleges on the west coast, okay? Don't even give yourself the option to follow him."

Eddie nodded rapidly. "Okay, yeah, that's good."

He could do that. Yeah, he could. He wanted to follow Richie, but he knew he shouldn't. So, he was going to trap his illogical side of his brain in a corner. Give it no way to get out. Let it wither and die until he's happily in college somewhere on the east coast.


	9. Senior Year: Part I

Eddie was standing in front of the front doors to the school, his legs not budging. The minute he walked through them, he would be a senior. It would be his last time walking through those doors for the first time, the last time he’d have to look around for his classes, the last time he’d ask his friends which lunch they have.

Someone shoved Eddie’s shoulder and he looked over to where Stan was, a small smile plastered on his face.

“You just gonna stand there all day?” He asked.

“I think I’d like that better than going in.” Eddie shrugged in response.

“Or you could just get it over with.” Stan placed a hand on Eddie’s back, pushing him forward slightly. “We’ve been waiting for this since before we even started high school, Eddie. We’re _done_.”

Eddie didn’t resist the push from his best friend, allowing himself to be guided into the school he knew as well as the back of his hand. He saw people that he recognized but had never spoken to before. In less than a year’s time, he would most likely never see these people again. He approached his locker, which wasn’t near any of his friends, being in alphabetical order meant only Mike and Ben were ever close to each other.

He moved without giving anything a second thought, opening up his locker, grabbing his books and heading towards his classroom. He’d gone through the motions so many times before that it became as natural to him as breathing. It wasn’t until he got to his first class of the day that he realized how different his life was than it had been every other first day of school. He sat in the back, as he did in all of his classes but was immediately dragged out of his seat by an overzealous boy.

“Eds, it’s our senior year, I’m not gonna let you sit in the fucking back of the classroom.” Richie’s voice boomed as he was dragged to the front of the classroom.

“Richie.” Eddie said in a hushed voice. “You know I sit in the back.”

“It’s science. I’m not gonna let you stare at me from the back of the classroom like we’re freshmen again. You’re gonna learn some physics this year.”

Eddie’s face flushed slightly red and he scoffed. “Like I would ever stare at you.”

“Oh, my love, I entertained you that entire year, don’t you lie.” Richie grinned and pushed Eddie down in a seat in the very front row, just to the right of himself.

The shorter boy let out a deep, defeated sigh and grabbed the things from his bag that he would need. Class ended up being just as chaotic as he expected it to be with Richie not only in his class, but right next to him.

Richie’s hand flew up next to him for the about the tenth time in the class and the teacher sighed. There was only a couple minutes left and it seemed as if everyone was ready for it to be over. “Yes, Richie?”

“Are we going to talk about time travel in this class?” He asked.

“Why would we do that?”

“Well, you know when you take a clock and bring it to space and orbit the earth with it and then the clock on the earth has a different time when you come back? It’s kinda like time travel.”

“Yes, we’ll talk about that. I wouldn’t consider it time travel though.”

“Obviously not in the traditional sense, but, like, with twins -” The bell cut Richie off. “Next time.” He snapped finger guns at the teacher and shoved his things in his backpack.

“That was exhausting, Tozier.” Eddie said as they left the classroom.

“I was curious.” Richie shrugged.

“You couldn’t have eased him into your curiosity?”

“I prefer to let it explode. You know, not dulling my sparkle.”

“That’s not at all what that phrase is about.” Eddie rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you at lunch?”

“Wait, where are you going?” Richie stopped walking.

“History. My next class. You should probably get to yours.” Eddie said, his tone implying his words were common knowledge.

“I have English. It’s with Mrs. Finch, she’s knows I’ll be late.”

“Why would you be late?”

Richie raised his eyebrows in response. “Because I’m going to walk you to class?” He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Eddie is almost certain that a million different facial expressions flashed across his face at those words. His heart skipped a beat for a moment.

“Um…” He tried to find words to use but if he was being honest, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was trying to say.

“C’mon, you’re going to be late.” Richie nudged his shoulder with his own.

They maneuvered their way through the busy hallways with expertise, Richie standing slightly in front of Eddie, using his height as a way to barricade through the crowds. As they got closer to Eddie’s classroom, he slowed down, standing next to the shorter boy, close enough to where their hands brushed each other’s more than a couple times.

At the class, Richie opened the door and took a dramatic bow. “You are here, your highness.”

Eddie chuckled. “Thank you, good sir.”

Richie then dramatically saluted, swiftly turned on his heel and left down the hall. Eddie watched him as the bell rang and he began walking slightly faster. Eddie shook his head and made his way to his seat. He hadn’t realized he was still smiling until he took a seat next to Bill (he was lucky enough to have at least one loser in each of his classes), who gave him a weird look.

“W-why are you so happy?”

Eddie let the smile fall from his face. “Uh, it’s just a good day.”

“W-was that Richie I saw outside the classroom?”

“Yeah.”

Bill hummed. “I see.”

Eddie scoffed. “It’s nothing.”

“Okay.”

“He just walked me to class.”

“Okay.”

“It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“You’re c-certainly making it seem like one.”

“Whatever, Bill, be quiet.” Eddie huffed and looked to the front of the classroom.

It really wasn’t a big deal.

  
Lunch came around and this year he found that he didn’t have a lunch period with all six of the other losers. He had lunch with Ben, Bill, and Mike on one day, and Richie, Stan, and Bev on the other.

“I heard this year is the year that you and Richie finally get your shit together and date.” Mike said the minute he sat at the table.

“Excuse me?” Eddie gasped. “What?”

“Richie walked into English class late, and Bill told us it was because he walked you to class.” Ben said

“I hardly doubt that counts as anything remotely close to dating.” Eddie responded. “Besides -” Bill sat down at the table last and Eddie’s attention was on him in a moment. “Bill Denbrough, what did you – why did you tell – just what?”

“Huh?” Bill blinked slowly.

“I’m not dating Richie.” Eddie hissed.

“Oh.” Bill laughed. “I didn’t say you w-were. I just said he w-walked you to class.” He turned to the other two boys. “He couldn’t stop smiling.”

Ben and Mike both cooed.

“I will leave all of you.” They all laughed. “I don’t even like him.”

“Okay, what we’re not going to do is lie.” Mike pointed an accusatory finger. “If you don’t want to talk about this, okay. But you’re not going to sit here and claim you don’t like him.”

“You two look at each other like you’re the only people in the world.” Ben said.

“Th-that, and you’re constantly eye-fucking.”

“I just want to say one thing,” Mike spoke in a serious tone. “And we won’t speak of it again, okay?”

“Okay.” Eddie nodded.

“It’s our senior year. He’s going off to, or at least trying to go, somewhere in the west coast. Stan said you’re looking more east coast. Just…try at least. You’ll hate yourself if you don’t.”

“Thanks for the advice, Mike.” Eddie smiled. “But, no.”

He just shrugged, and as promised, the subject was dropped.

  
  
“I ‘appen tuh be hilarious!” Richie exclaimed in a terribly executed British accent.

The six other losers were sprawled around the basement of Bill’s house, Richie was pacing around the room, his hands being thrown around the air dramatically. The others let out pity chuckles as he swapped through various accents, hoping to get legitimate laughs.

“Richie, you know I love you but….” Bev spoke up.

“But what, Marsh?”

“Stick to jokes.” She finished. “Your accents are atrocious.”

Eddie snorted at that and Richie glared at them both.

“You think my accents are _atrocious_ , Eds?” Richie put a hand to his heart as if he’d been seriously wounded.

Eddie sucked in a harsh breath. “I mean…”

“You mean, what?” Richie knelt in front of him, speaking loudly.

“You’re not nearly as funny as you think they are.” He grimaced.

“That’s it.” Richie stood up and leaned over, hooking his arms under Eddie’s legs and around his back, effectively picking him up from the couch.

“Richie!” Eddie shrieked as he was being picked up. “Someone help!” The others just laughed lowly, watching the scene play out. “Stan? Bill? Anyone!”

“No one can help you.” Richie walked off towards the back of the room with him in his arms.

Eddie squirmed and struggled but only managed to reposition himself, so he was thrown over Richie’s shoulder. He began hitting Richie’s back, the only thing he could do with the taller boy’s harsh grip on him.

“I’m putting you in the trashcan where you belong.” Richie finally spoke, his foot pressing the lever on the ground to open up the can.

“Richie, no!” Eddie screamed, wrapping his arms tightly around his neck, effectively keeping him in place.

Richie tried pulling the smaller boy off him, yanking his waist and trying to (literally) throw him in the trash can. Eddie’s arms tightened and wrapped his arms around Richie’s waist as well. Richie then lost balance and fell forward, Eddie’s weight bringing him down harshly and they both collapsed in a pile on the floor.

Eddie heard a couple of their friends gasp and he let out a groan of pain as Richie landed on top of him, pinning his body to the ground.

“Fuck.” Richie murmured, pulling himself up, but Eddie’s arms were still around his neck. “Uh, Eds?”

“Sorry.” He replied quickly, removing himself from Richie and scrambling away on the ground.

Eddie looked up to see five sets of wide eyes looking back at them.

“That was…” Mike started.

“Dramatic.” Stan finished.

Richie pushed himself off up the ground and reached a hand out to help Eddie get up. He took it, cautiously, and was pulled up to his feet with ease. Richie let out a deep sigh and sheepishly ran a hand through his hair.

“I was just trying to put you in the trashcan.”

Eddie pursed his lips and looked at Richie’s disheveled nature from falling so ungracefully, then down at his own, he could feel bruises already forming on his body. Despite this, he let out a fit of giggles.

“That didn’t work out well for you.” Eddie laughed.

Richie’s mouth fell slightly opened, his eyebrows contorted in confusion. The other losers’ sported similar looks on their faces.

“No…” Richie coughed a bit. “You’re quite feisty.”

Eddie put his hand over his mouth, trying to stop himself from laughing.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked.

“Why did you do that?” Eddie asked Richie while trying to catch his breath.

“Uh.” Richie shrugged.

“Are you okay?” Bev repeated her boyfriend’s question.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, sorry.” Eddie took a slow breath. “Sorry, it’s just that was probably the most chaotic minute of my life and it ended with me nearly in a trashcan. With a trashmouth.”

A small smile stretched across Richie’s face as he looked at Eddie’s face flushed with joy. “I guess I can be funny.”

“Yeah, funny.” Stan spoke quietly.

“I say we watch a movie and try not to ever do that again.” Bill suggested.

“I’m going to get some water and I’ll be right back. I don’t care what we watch.” Eddie said and made his way upstairs.

As he was grabbing a cup from the cabinet, he heard footsteps behind him.

“Are you actually okay, Eddie?” Richie asked from the doorway of the kitchen.

Eddie turned around. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll have a good couple of bruises, but that’s no big deal – as long as my mom doesn’t see them.”

“I mean, why did you laugh so hard?” Richie walked over and leaned against the counter.

Eddie shrugged softly. “I’ve been stressed.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I guess you literally knocked the tension out of me. I kinda started laughing before I could stop myself.”

“Stressed?” Richie cocked his head to the side.

“Just college applications, nothing everything else isn’t dealing with too.”

“Oh, you close to being done?”

“Almost.” Eddie nodded. “You?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m finished. Done. Over it.”

“Completely?” Richie nodded in response. “Oh, cool. Where did you end up applying?”

Eddie suddenly felt awkward talking about this with Richie. The last time they spoke about college, just the two of them, was when Richie had told him that he saw a future with him in it. He knew Richie was applying to mostly west coast schools, but that was the extent of his knowledge.

“Every University of California, hoping for LA, but we’ll see.”

“None over here?”

“East coast, Eds? Not my thing.”

“Oh.” Eddie’s throat suddenly felt tight.

“I did apply to NYU though. Just for fun.”

“Oh.” Eddie repeated, his voice slightly higher, and looked up at Richie.

“You?” Richie asked. “You figure anything out, Mr. ‘scared of the future’?”

Eddie rolled his eyes and shoved Richie lightly. “A few different ones near here. Maine. New York. Massachusetts.”

“No west coast?”

“West coast, Rich? Not my thing.” Eddie mocked the tone Richie had used earlier. Richie stayed quiet, like he expected Eddie to add something else to the end of his sentence like Richie had. But Eddie stayed quiet.

“I see.” Richie finally said, his voice low. He swallowed so hard that Eddie could hear it. “Hope it all works out.”

“Yeah.”

“We should probably head back downstairs.” Richie started towards the door.

“You know,” Eddie’s voice stopped him in his track. “I wish that all seven of us could go to the same college. It’s just – it’s not realistic.”

Richie stood up a bit straighter. “Oh, I know, that’s not…I know.”

“I’ll miss you.” Eddie said in a small voice.

“Aw, Eds.” Richie cooed. “We’ve got plenty of time still.”

Eddie just smiled and followed him downstairs.

  
  
When Eddie got home, he sat at his desk, staring at his half-finished application to UCLA before he could hear Stan’s voice in his head, _‘Don’t even give yourself the option to follow him’_ and he promptly got rid of the application.

  
  
“Partners, Eds!” Richie exclaimed in the middle of class. “Everything’s coming in full circles. We’re going to be partners now that we’re friends, you’re sitting in the front of the classroom with me, it’s like the universe wants to wrap up high school with a nice little bow.”

“ _That_ , or we’re partners because we’re sitting next to each other.” Eddie pointed out.

“Don’t ruin the fun of believing in fate, Spaghetti.”

Eddie crinkled his nose at the name, but ignored it, have learned that giving Richie a reaction was worse. “Whether or not it's fate or _coincidence_ , we have a project to work on.”

“It’s a good thing I’m good at science.” Richie grinned, his voice loud and boisterous in the classroom that would otherwise be at a relatively low volume.

Their science teacher stopped by their desk as he was walking around. “It’s also a good thing, Mr. Tozier, that I’m going to be sending you and Eddie to the library to work on the project.”

Eddie sighed and began to gather his things. “I understand.”

When the pair walked out of the classroom, Richie raised his eyebrows at Eddie.

“What?”

“Alright, Eds, we already know we’re going to work on this project after school, so I say we don’t go to the library, we can play hooky a bit.” Richie wrapped an arm around Eddie’s shoulder, who stopped walking at Richie’s words.

“You want to skip?” Eddie asked.

Richie groaned dramatically. “It’s not skipping if the teacher kicked us out anyways. We’re going to finish the project and it’s not like we’re leaving school grounds.”

Eddie pursed his lips, considering. “If we get caught, you _will_ be dead, I’ll make sure of it.”

Richie just laughed and leaned down, pressing a wet kiss onto Eddie’s cheek, then walked down the hallway with more speed than before. Eddie’s cheek tingled where he could still feel Richie’s lips and his heart felt like it was stuck, but he followed his friend down the hall nonetheless.

“I hope you know this isn’t going to be a reoccurring thing.” Eddie said as they exited the back most door of the school. It led to the back of the building where nothing but grass was present between the walls and the slew of trees decorating the entire perimeter of the school.

“Um, I didn’t even think it was going to be a one time thing.” Richie sat down on the grass, back pressed against the wall. “I was half joking and didn’t expect you to agree.”

“Richie! Then what are we doing out here?” Eddie turned back towards the door.

Richie reached up and grabbed Eddie’s hand, pulling him to the ground. “Live a little. One time won’t kill you. Especially when we aren’t even expected in class, which only lasts another 30 or so minutes.”

Eddie visibly relaxed. “You’re right.”

“Of course, I am.”

The two sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of nature, the birds chirping in the trees only feet away from them, and occasionally speaking a sentence or two. The air around them was beginning to become colder by the day, changing fast as the long season of winter in Maine was approaching.

“I got into UC Davis.” Richie spoke up.

“What?” Eddie whipped his head towards him. “Already?”

“They did rolling admission this year.” Richie grabbed a handful of grass and proceeded to tear up the blades.

“Oh.” Eddie let out a long breath. “Wow, congratulations, that’s…that’s really amazing, Richie. Have you told the others?”

“No. I wanted to tell you first.”

 _‘Why?_ ’ stayed on the tip of Eddie’s tongue but he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask. Richie, who Eddie was almost certain could read his mind at this point, answered the unspoken question anyways.

“Like, obviously everyone’s my best friend, and Bev’s like my sister, but you’re something different to me. A whole different story.”

“Different?”

“Yeah, it’s not like you don’t know, like you haven’t noticed.”

But Eddie didn’t know, not really. His friends had talked about things like silly crushes and love-struck looks, but nobody _really_ talked about anything in serious terms. If anyone was to ask what Eddie and Richie were, everyone would respond ‘best friends’. But here Richie was talking about something more, ‘a whole different story’ as he put it.

“Haven’t noticed what?”

“Eddie,” Richie sighed and looked at him with the softest look Eddie thought he had ever seen on the boy’s face. “I’ve told you. That you’re everything and more. That I’d do anything for you.”

“Well, yeah, all of us losers, I’d say we’re more than friends. I would die in a heartbeat for you guys, I’d _kill_ for you.” Eddie said. His body felt hot, his palms were sweaty, and he wasn’t sure how to handle this situation. It felt like they were bouncing around the truth with a half confession, and he didn’t know how to hit it.

“All the losers?”

“Richie, you _know_ \- ” Eddie started and realized he was about to, in his own words, repeat what Richie had said to him. About just knowing how the other felt.

“Do I?” Richie spoke slowly.

They stared at each other, once again only hearing the sounds of the nature around us. Eddie felt panic rise up in his throat. Never in a million years did he imagine anything like this happening. He was going to leave high school, never having acted on this silly crush, attraction, whatever damn thing it was that he felt for Richie. He sure as hell wasn’t ever going to try to make it into something, for Stan’s sake, who he promised long ago he would never date Richie, but mostly for his own sake, not wanting to put himself in a position in which a single person had so much power over him. He suddenly felt the strong urge to run, to leave Richie where he was, sitting in the grass.

“Eddie…” Richie took a deep breath. “When are we going to do something about this unspoken thing between us?”

“We don’t have an unspoken thing.” Eddie was trying to stop the conversation where it was. He needed to talk to Stan or Bill, probably Bill. He needed to get lost somewhere in the woods where he could think about this. He wasn’t emotionally prepared for this conversation today, and he didn’t think he ever would be.

“That’s the thing, if you said we did, it wouldn’t be unspoken.”

Richie looked as if he was baring his whole soul to Eddie, and he probably was, but he couldn’t handle it. Eddie stood up quickly, brushing the dirt of himself and picking up his backpack. Could he really do this? This was the guy that’d been occupying his mind, in one way or another, since his freshman year. He’d been stealing glances, being lit on fire from touches, feeling pure _joy_ because of Richie for years. Yet, now, faced in this situation, Richie looking up at him teary eyed, his voice cracking with vulnerability, he didn’t know if he wanted all of the intensity that he made him feel.  
  
“Eddie Kaspbrak, I - ”

But before Richie could finish, Eddie ran.

 


	10. Senior Year: Part II

Eddie spent the night sobbing in a ball, curled up in Bill’s lap on his bed. His breath came out harsh, hiccuping and gasping for air. His body was drained, the physical and emotional toll of crying weighing him down. His face was blood red and tear stained, heavy bags had begun to appear underneath his eyes.

Bill muttered murmurs of _“It’s okay.” “Don’t worry about it.” “We’ll figure this out.”_ but nothing stopped the constant whimpers and convulsions from taking over Eddie’s body.

“Should I call Stan? You want him here, too?” Bill asked, running a hand through Eddie’s hair, trying everything to calm him down.

Eddie made a grumbling noise.

“I’m going to call him.” Bill softly pulled Eddie off of his lap and onto the array of pillows around them.

Bill stepped out into the hallway outside Eddie’s room to call Stan and shut the door. Eddie was beyond grateful that his mother had decided to visit her sister for the week. It had taken a lot of convincing for her to leave him home alone but after constant reassurance that he would call if he needed anything, that the neighbors knew he was home alone, and that he couldn’t miss a week of school, he was left.

Eddie could make out a couple words that Bill was saying.

“Please...it’s bad…I don’t know…yes…he’s here…no.”

He was trying to piece together what Bill was telling Stan when he walked back into the room.

“He’s going to be here soon.”

“Thank you.” Eddie managed to choke out, his voice hoarse from the crying.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Bill sat on the bed and slung an arm around Eddie’s shoulder, pulling him up into a sitting position.

“I think…” Eddie tried to calm his breathing down, so he could get out a coherent sentence. “I think I really fucked up.”

“Don’t think about that.” Bill brushed his fingers through Eddie’s hair, working out some knots and trying to soothe his crying friend. “I’m going to get you some water, do you want anything to eat?”

Eddie shook his head and Bill nodded, leaving Eddie on the bed as he ran downstairs, not wanting to leave him for longer than he had to.  
Stan bursted through the door as Bill was filling the glass . “I’m here!”

“Uh…I _just_ called you.” Bill said, almost dropping the water in shock at the sound of the door slamming open.

“I biked.” Stan replied, his breathing heavy and his face red. “Through some yards, hit a couple bushes.”

Bill smiled softly. “Okay, he’s upstairs. On his bed.”

Stan walked up the first two steps before he stopped himself and turned around. “Is he okay? He’s crying, obviously, but are we going to even be able to talk to him?”

“He’s getting out a couple sentences, yeah.”

“What exactly happened? With Richie?”

“I’m not 100% sure, something with, in Eddie’s words, _‘a lot of emotions’_.”

“A fight?” Stan questioned.

“A confession.”

“Oh.” Stan breathed out harshly, his eyebrows furrowing. He made a popping sound with his lips and turned to continue up the stairs. “Let’s go then.”

Bill followed Stan up the stairs, significantly less confident and enthusiastic than Stan seemed to be. To be fair, Bill never was good at this element of dealing with emotions. He could give decent advice and he was pretty great at distracting. But crying? Bill wasn’t so great with that.

Stan opened the door to Eddie laying on the bed, under his blankets now and no longer curled up. He was on his side, half his face pressed into his pillow and his hair covered the visible remainder of his face. Bill moved passed him and placed the glass of water on the bedside table.

“Hey, Eddie, you okay?” Stan laid down next to him, moving his body underneath the covers as well.

Eddie made a chuckling noise from deep in his throat. “What do you think?” He looked at Stan with tear stained cheeks and blood shot eyes.

“Asking how you are is common courtesy.” Stan stated simply.

Eddie sighed. “I know.” He brushed his hair out of his face. “I’m fine. Not good. But not crying anymore.”

“He was a goddamn mess earlier.” Bill spoke up from his place at the foot of the bed.

“Hey!” Eddie glared.

“Not without reason, I’m sure.” Stan jumped in. “Now what happened?”

“Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Just give me a run down.”

“I’m sorry.” Eddie started, and he could feel his eyes sting a little with new tears. “This is pathetic, I’m awful and this whole thing…it’s a mess because of me.”

“Tell me what happened.” They both were laying down, facing each other. Stan reached over and placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, trying to ground him. Bill still sat on the end of the bed, in between the other boys’ legs.

“Richie and I skipped science class and went outside. We started talking about college and then us and then he said we had an ‘ _unspoken thing_ ’ and that I was different to him. And then he tried to say something else but I ran away before he could.”

Stan bit the inside of his cheek, mulling Eddie’s words over in his head.

“Damn, Eddie, you don’t want to know what he was going to say?” Bill spoke up.

Eddie groaned and willed himself to sit up, leaning his back against his headboard. “Not really.” He sighed. “Yes…I don’t know.” He placed his face into the palms of his hands.

“Did anything else happen?” Stan sat up as well.

“Not really.”

Stan took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, working out a couple of tangles quickly. The three boys stayed silent for a minute or so.

“You really ran away?” Bill asked.

“I didn’t know what to do.” Eddie’s eyes were wide.

“You confess. Or you kiss him. Or you fuck him. Or any variation of that.” Bill said nonchalantly, and Stan snorted.

Eddie glared at him. “You don’t understand. I didn’t expect this to ever be real. Like, yeah, I’ve thought about him since freshman year-”

“Freshman year?” Stan asked, cocking an eyebrow up in amusement.

“Irrelevant.” Eddie said. “I thought this was going to be one of those crushes that just goes away, you know? I never planned on doing something about it.”

“Richie obviously did.”

“But that wasn’t a part of _my_ plan!”

“You can’t plan for everything.” Stan responded, and it made Eddie falter for a moment.

“It doesn’t feel right. I don’t….I don’t know if I want to say anything.”

Bill moved his body closer to the other boys, the three of them sitting with their legs crossed, making a sort of triangle shape with their bodies. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“But you do like him. And if that conversation is anything to go by, I think he likes you, too.”

Eddie tapped his fingers on his thighs nervously and pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth. “We’ll see.”

Stan and Bill nodded. Now that Eddie had stopped having a complete mental breakdown, he was thinking a bit more rationally.

“What do I do tomorrow at school though? And what about the project Richie and I have?” Eddie asked.

“Well do you think you should talk to him before school or just wait it out?” Bill questioned.

“Maybe I can ask if he wants to talk after school.”

“There you go.” Stan smiled encouragingly.

Eddie made an exasperated noise of stress. “Okay.”

  
Eddie walked into school the next day with more anxiety coursing through his body than his first day of high school ever. He probably wouldn’t see Richie until lunch time considering they didn’t have a class together in the morning, but sometimes they passed each other in the hallways. His stomach was in knots and his palms were sweaty, no matter how many times he attempted to wipe them try on his pants.

“Have you seen him today?” Bill whispered to him in their math class.

“No. I have lunch with him today.” Eddie whispered back.

“What are we talking about?” Mike leaned over from the other side of Bill.

“Nothing.” Eddie muttered quickly.

Mike huffed. “Tell me later.”

“Okay.” Eddie lied, knowing fully well if everything went bad today he would be telling absolutely no one. “Have you seen Richie today?”

“Yeah, I saw him this morning.” Mike answered back. “Why?”

“Just wondering.” Eddie looked back up to the front of the class immediately, focusing on the lesson.

As each minute passed, Eddie’s throat felt like it was closing tighter and tighter. His heart was pounding in his chest and his stomach fluttered. By the time lunch rolled around, he felt like he could pass out at any given moment. He sat with his lunch, his hands a bit shaky as they reached for his food. Stan sat down with him, but across the table, giving him a sympathetic look. Then Bev came. But no Richie.

Eddie internally began to panic, and Stan seemed to pick up on that.

“Where’s Richie?” Stan asked Beverly.

“Oh, he’ll be here in a minute. He texted me saying he’s running late.” She shrugged.

Stan rolled his eyes. “What was he doing, arguing with a teacher?”

Bev laughed and waved a hand dismissively. “He’s actually talking to a counselor about some college shit, I don’t know exactly.”

Eddie bit his lip, hard.

“You feeling okay, Eddie? You’ve been quiet.” Beverly asked him

He nodded. “Feel a bit sick that’s all, ‘m not really hungry.”

Bev smiled and rubbed his back softly.

“Hey, losers.” Richie’s voice sounded behind him and Eddie’s stomach dropped, he covered his mouth as a wave of nausea passed through him.

Richie sat next to Stan, directly in front of Beverly. He put his food down on the table with a typical slam. A bright smile was plastered on his face.

“How was it?” Bev asked him.

“’Twas fine, my dear lady. I just had a couple questions.” He shrugged in response and glanced over to Eddie. “You feelin’ alright, Eds?”

Eddie’s eyes opened wide and he nodded.

“He’s feeling sick.” Bev answered for him.

“Well we need to work on our project. Are you feeling up for it today?” He looked at Eddie and paused, waiting for a reply. Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed. “It’s fine if you’re not, we’ve got a week to do it.”

Eddie swallowed hard. “I should be fine this afternoon.”

“Cool. My house?” Eddie nodded, and Richie grinned, then put his focus on his food.

Stan gave a swift, discrete kick to Eddie’s shin, who whipped his head up quickly. “ _What the fuck?_ ” Stan mouthed, to which Eddie shook his head in a slightly panicked disbelief.

After lunch, Stan gripped Eddie’s arm painfully and dragged him into the nearest bathroom, away from Beverly and Richie.

“What the actual fuck?” Stan repeated his question from earlier.

“I don’t know!” Eddie exclaimed.

“I mean, I believe you that all of that shit yesterday happened but, like, -”

“ _Stan_ , I swear, he was even crying and shit. And Bev didn’t even act like anything happened and you know he would have told her!” Eddie leaned against the wall, leaning his head back and looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t understand.”

“Was it all a big misunderstanding?”

Eddie let out a frustrated sigh. “I just don’t get it.”

“Maybe ask him about it this afternoon?”

“And make this into a big mess if it really was a misunderstanding?”

Stan pursed his lips. “There’s only one way to find out. You’ll be tearing yourself up if you don’t know.”

Eddie pushed himself off the wall. “Fuck you, Stan, stop being right all the time.”

“It’s a gift, really.”

  
Once again, Eddie found his palms sweating and his stomach twisting itself over as he walked up to Richie’s door. He had biked over as slow as he possibly good, treading time alone with Richie. He knew he should ask about everything that happened, talk it over with him even, but something in the back of his mind kept tempting him to just leave it be. Barely a second after Eddie touched the doorbell, the door was swinging open.

“Hey, Eds!” Richie chirped happily.

Eddie took a deep breath. “Hi.”

“You feeling any better?”

“A little.”

“Good. Let’s head up and work then.” Richie stepped to the side and let Eddie walk in, his house empty. “My mom should be home in a couple hours but it’s just us right now.”

“Uh, okay, that’s...okay.” Eddie cursed himself for being so flustered and awkward. He hadn’t acting like this in front of Richie since before he even knew him.

“I was thinking that we could make a problem like the one we went over in class…” Richie went off about the project and the different elements they could use in the final product as they walked up to his room. The room was messy as always. Clothes throw everywhere, and nothing had much order. It wasn’t dirty, Eddie always reminded himself, just messy.

Richie wrote everything he was saying on a piece of paper that sat on the desk in front of them and Eddie tried to keep up but to no avail. He had a knack for science and Eddie didn’t, he’d just ask Richie to explain it to him when he was done talking a mile a minute. Eddie glanced up away from the paper to look at Richie, a few stray pieces of hair had fallen in front of his face and his glasses were slipping down his nose. Messy, but in no way dirty. Beautiful, Eddie’s brain supplied itself and he let out a shaky breath.

“I have a question.” Eddie said, stopping Richie for a moment.

“Oh!” Richie leaned back. “I’m sorry, was I going too fast? I’ll slow down.”

Eddie messed with the hem of his shirt nervously. “Not about physics.”

“Oh.” Richie said, with less enthusiasm this time.

The two of them were silent for a deafening moment.

“Are you just going to pretend nothing happened yesterday?” Eddie forced himself to get the words out.

Richie pushed his chair away from the desk, allowing him to stretch out his legs quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’m sorry that I made you feel awkward yesterday…and today. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.” Richie said seriously, and Eddie was taken aback.

“What position?” He questioned.

“I guess, well I guess I assumed you felt the same way about me and I want you to know that…” Richie paused and stood up from his chair, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t hold anything against you. I was going to pretend it never happened, so you weren’t put into a weird place.”

“Oh.” Eddie looked down, his mouth falling slightly open. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting at all.

“If you feel weird being friends with me, I understand.”

“No!” Eddie’s head snapped up and he stood up as well, taking a step towards Richie.

“No?”

“I don’t feel weird.”

Richie smiled slightly. “I’m glad.”

Eddie clenched his fists and took another step closer. “I do.”

“Hm?”

“I do feel the same way.”

This time, Richie’s eyes opened wide and he took a sharp intake of breath. “Why?”

The question was loaded. _Why did you run away? Why didn’t you say anything? Why do you feel like that?_

“I’ve been overwhelmed for years.”

Richie choked on nothing, letting out a painful cough. “Years?”

Eddie stepped again. Richie hadn’t moved, their bodies now inches away from being pressed together. He looked up to where Richie’s face was beet red. “You’ve been running around my thoughts in one way or another since the day you walked into that damn science class.”  
  
It wasn’t clear which one of them closed the gap, but within moments their lips were pressed together in a way that put that goddamn chicken kiss to shame. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie’s waist, the sheer force of his grip pulling Eddie up onto his toes as he wrapped his arms so tightly that he touched his own shoulders. Eddie could vaguely register that Richie was moving them and he felt himself fall back onto the unmade bed. Their lips disconnected, and Richie fell in between his legs, putting his weight on his elbows.

“Are you serious?” Richie asked breathlessly.

“Of course I am.” Eddie said, his voice slightly hoarse.

Richie leaned forward and planted a kiss on Eddie’s nose. “I’m fucking enamored with you.”

Eddie felt a surge of affection and pulled Richie down, kissing him again. He ignored the little bit of panic deep inside his stomach and instead focused on how good Richie’s lips felt moving against his, how their tongues meshed perfectly together, how soft Richie’s hair felt in between his fingers.

He would deal with the panic later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes lmao it's been forever sorry. anyways i was originally gonna take this fic in a different direction but i figured since i take so long to write a single chapter i'd give y'all some happiness

**Author's Note:**

> each of these chapters will be labeled by the year in high school they're in!
> 
> thanks for reading!


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